THE
FEMALE POETS
OF
AMERICA.
BY KUFUS WLLMOT GRISWOLD.
WITH ADDITIONS BY R. H. STODDARD.
I AM OBNOXIOUS TO EACH CARPING TONGUE
THAT SAYS MY HAND A NEEDLE BETTER FITS ;
A POET'S PEN ALL SCORN I THUS SHOULD WRONG,
FOR SUCH DESPITE THEY CAST ON FEMALE WITS.
* * * BUT SURE THE ANTIQUE GREEKS WERE FAR MORE MILD,
ELSE OF OUR SEX WHY FEIGNED THEY THOSE NINE,
AND POESY MADE CALLIOPE'S OWN CHILD ?—
SO MONGST THE REST THEY PLACED THE ARTS DIVINE.
THE FOUR ELKMBNTS: By Anne Bradstreet, Boston, 1640.
CAREFULLY REVISED, MUCH ENLARGED, AND CONTINUED TO THE PRESENT TIME.
NEW YORK:
JAMES MILLER, PUBLISHER, 6±7 BROADWAY.
1874
ENTERED ACCORDING TO ACT OF CONGRESS, IN THE YEAR 1843, BY CAREY & HART, IN THE OFFICE OF
THE CLERK OF THE DISTRICT COURT OF THE EASTERN DISTRICT OF PENNSYLVANIA.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
JAMES MILLER,
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington.
LANGE, LITTLE & Co.,
PRINTERS, ELKCTR.OTYPERS AND STEREOTYPERS,
108 TO 114 WOOSTER STREET, N Y.
PREFACE.
IT is less easy to be assured of the genuineness of literary ability in women
than in men. The moral nature of women, in its finest and richest develop
ment, partakes of some of the qualities of genius ; it assumes, at least, the simili
tude of that which in men is the characteristic or accompaniment of the highest
grade of mental inspiration. We are in danger, therefore, of mistaking for the
efflorescent energy of creative intelligence, that which is only the exuberance
of personal " feelings unemployed." We may confound the vivid dreamings of
an unsatisfied heart, with the aspirations of a mind impatient of the fetters of
time, and matter, and mortality. That may seem to us the abstract imagining
of a soul rapt into sympathy with a purer beauty and a higher truth than earth
and space exhibit, which in fact shall be only the natural craving of affections,
undefined and wandering. The most exquisite susceptibility of the spirit, and
the capacity to mirror in dazzling variety the effects which circumstances or
surrounding minds work upon it, may be accompanied by no power to origi
nate, nor even, in any proper sense, to reproduce. It does not follow, because
the most essential genius in men is marked by qualities which we may call
feminine, that such qualities when found in female writers have any certain or
just relation to mental superiority. The conditions of a3sthetic ability in the
two sexes are probably distinct, or even opposite. Among men, we recognise
his nature as the most thoroughly artist-like, whose most abstract thoughts still
retain a sensuous cast, whose mind is the most completely transfused and in
corporated into his feelings. Perhaps the reverse should be considered the
test of true art in woman, and we should deem her the truest poet, whose emo
tions are most refined by reason, whose force of passion is most expanded and
controlled into lofty and impersonal forms of imagination. Coming to the duty
of criticism, however, with something of this antecedent skepticism, I have
reviewed the collection of works which my task brought before me, with fre
quent admiration and surprise ; and leaving to others the less welcome task of
rejecting pretensions, which must inspire interest, if they can not command
acquiescence, I content myself with expressing, affirmatively, my own con
viction, that the writings of Mrs. Maria Brooks, Mrs. Oakes-Smith, Mrs.
PREFACE.
Osgood, Mrs. Whitman, and some others here quoted, illustrate as high and
sustained a range of poetic art, as the female genius of any age or country can
display. The most striking quality of that civilization which is evolving itself
in America, is the deference felt for women. As a point in social manners, it
is so pervading and so peculiar, as to amount to a national characteristic ; and
it ought to be valued and vaunted as the pride of our freedom, and the brightest
hope of our history. It indicates a more exalted appreciation of an influence
that never can be felt too deeply, for it never is exerted but for good. In the
aosence from us of those great visible and formal institutions by which Europe
has been educated, it seems as if Nature had designed that resources of her own
providing should guide us onward to the maturity of civil refinement. The in
creased degree in which women among us are taking a leading part in literature,
is one of the circumstances of this augmented distinction and control on their
part. The proportion of female writers at this moment in America, far exceeds
that which the present or any other age in England exhibits. It is in the West,
too, where we look for what is most thoroughly native and essential in American
character, that we are principally struck with the number of youthful female
voices that soften and enrich the tumult of enterprise, and action, by the inter-
blended music of a calmer and loftier sphere. Those who cherish a belief that
the progress of society in this country is destined to develop a school of art,
original and special, will perhaps find more decided indications of the infusion
of our domestic spirit and temper into literature, in the poetry of our female
authors, than in that of our men. It has been suggested by foreign critics, that
our citizens are too much devoted to business and politics to feel interest in
pursuits which adorn but do not profit, and which beautify existence but do not
consolidate power : feminine genius is perhaps destined to retrieve our public
character in this respect, and our shores may yet be far resplendent with a
temple of art which, while it is a glory of our land, may be a monument to the
honor of the sex.
The American people have been thought deficient in that warmth and deli
cacy of taste, without which there can be no genuine poetic sensibility. Were
it true, it were much to be regretted that we should be wanting in that noble
capacity to receive pleasure from what is beautiful in nature or exquisite in
art — in that venerating sense — that prophetic recognition — that quick, intense
perception, which sees the divine relations of all things that delight the eye or
kindle the imagination. One endowed with an apprehension like this, becomes
purer and more elevated, in sentiment and aspiration, after viewing an embodi-
PREFACE.
ment of any such conception as that specimen of genius materialized, the Bel-
videre Apollo, " at the aspect of which," says Winckelmann, "I forget all the
universe : I involuntarily assume the most noble attribute of my being in order
to be worthy of its presence." I shall not inquire into the causes of the denial
that this fine instinct exists among us. The earlier speculations upon the sub
ject, by Depaw and others, were deemed of sufficient importance to be an
swered by the two of our presidents who have been most distinguished in
literature and philosophy : but they have been repeated, in substance, by De
Tocqueville, who had seen, or might have seen, the works of Dana, Bryant,
Halleck, Longfellow, and Whittier ; of Irving, Cooper, Kennedy, Hawthorne,
and Willis ; of Webster, C banning, Prescott, Bancroft, and Legare ; of Allston,
Leslie, Leutze, Huntington, and Cole ; of Powers, Greenough, Crawford,
Clevenger, and Brown. Such prejudices, which could not be dispelled by the
creations of these men, will be little affected by anything that could be offered
here : yet to an understanding guided by candor, the additional display of a
body of literature like the present, exhibiting so pervading an aspiration after
the beautiful — under circumstances, in many cases, so little propitious to its
action — and in a sex which in earlier ages has contributed so sparingly to high
art — will come with the weight of cumulative testimony.
Several persons are mentioned in this volume whose lives have been no
holydays of leisure : those, indeed, who have not in some way been active in
practical duties, are exceptions to the common rule. One was a slave — one a
domestic servant — one a factory girl: and there are many in the list who had
no other time to give to the pursuits of literature but such as was stolen from
a frugal and industrious housewifery, from the exhausting cares of teaching, or
the fitful repose of sickness. These illustrations of the truth, that the muse is
no respecter of conditions, are especially interesting in a country where, though
equality is an axiom, it is not a reality, and where prejudice reverses in the
application all that theory has affirmed in words. The propriety of bringing
before the world compositions produced amid humble and laborious occupa
tions, has been vindicated by Bishop Potter, with so much force and elegance,
in his introduction to the Poems of Maria James, that I regret that the limits
of this preface forbid my copying what I should wish every reader of this book
to be acquainted with.
When I completed " The Poets and Poetry of America," a work of which
the public approval has been illustrated in the sale of ten large editions, I
determined upon the preparation of the present volume, the appearance of
PREFACE.
which has been delayed by my interrupted health. I must be permitted, how
ever, to congratulate with the public, that since my intention was announced
and known, others have relieved me from the responsibility of singly executing
that which I had been hardy enough singly to plan and propose. Their merits
may compensate for my deficiencies. The first volume of this nature which
appeared in this country, was printed in Philadelphia in 1S44, under the title
of "Gems from American Female Poets, with brief biographies, by Rufus W.
Griswold." As Mr. T. B. Read, in his " Female Poets of America," (it is
Mr. Read's publisher who declares, in the advertisement to this work, that "the
biographical notices which it contains have been prepared in every instance from
facts either within his personal knowledge, or communicated to him directly by
the authors or their friends,") and Miss C. May, in her "American Female
Poets," (in the preface to which she acknowledges a resort to " printed authori
ties,") have done me the honor to copy that slight performance with only a too
faithful closeness, I owe them apologies for having led them into some errors of
fact. Both of them, transcribing from the " Gems," speak of Mrs. Mowatt as
the daughter of " the late" Mr. Samuel Gouverneur Ogden : I am happy to con
tradict the record, by staling that Mr. Ogden still enjoys in health and vigor the
honors of living excellence. Mr. Read, reproducing my early mistake, has
given Mrs. Hall the Christian name of Elizabeth, and the birthplace of Boston.
Nothing but the extraordinary haste with which the trifling volume of 1844 was
put together, could excuse my ignorance that the name of the authoress of
"Miriam" was Louisa Jane, and that she was a native of Newburyport. In
one or the other of these volumes are many more errors, for which I confess
myself solely responsible: but it would be tedious to point them out, while it
would be scarcely necessary to do so, as they will undoubtedly be corrected,
from the present work, should the volumes referred to attain to second editions.
It is proper to state that a large number of the poems in this volume are now
for the first time printed. Many authors, with a confidence and kindness which
are justly appreciated, not only placed at my disposal their entire printed works,
but gave me permission to examine and make use of their literary M8S. without
limitation.
FEW YORK, December, 1848.
PREFACE TO THIS EDITION.
twenty-five years have passed since the first publication of " THE
FEMALE POETS OF AMEKICA," of which a new and enlarged edition is here
presented to the reader. Many who figured in its pages then have passed
away, and others who remain have passed out of the remembrance of their
contemporaries. It might almost be said that a new school of poetry has
arisen, and a new race of female poets come into existence since this col
lection was first made. There is little or no similarity between the writers
whom I have added to it, arid those whom Dr. Griswold delighted to honor,
and from whose writings he selected so lavishly. If he were alive now I
have no doubt but that he would prefer the latter to the former, but he
would hardly be able to bring his readers to his way of thinking. We have
outgrown such singers of spontaneous verse as Mrs. Hemans and Miss Lan-
don, and we insist that our songstresses shall outgrow them, too. If they
must reflect other minds, those minds must be of a larger order than their
own, or we will none of them — at second-hand. There is, if I am not mis
taken, more force and more originality — in other words, more genius — in
the living female poets of America than in all their predecessors, from Mis
tress Anne Bradstreet down. At any rate there is a wider range of
thought in their verse, and infinitely more art.
I have not meddled with Dr. Griswold's selections, which are not in all
cases, perhaps, such as I should have chosen, and I have, of course, let his
criticisms stand for what they are worth: they are generally generous,
never, I believe, severe. I have been obliged, however, to alter his text in
several instances, either because the ladies to whom it referred have mar
ried, or died, or both, since it was first written. I have endeavored to
PREFACE TO THIS EDITION.
state with accuracy the dates of birth and death, but have not been able to
do so in a number of instances, owing to the usual sins of omission in
American biographical works. Dr. Griswold appears to have shrunk from
fulfilling this part of his task, — at least so far as the dates of birth were con
cerned, for reasons which may be conjectured, — as I have myself. If I may
allude to so delicate a matter as a lady's age, the age of no lady whose poe
try is included in the additions which I have made will ever be known
through any indiscretion of mine. I have to thank these ladies for infor
mation furnished with regard to their poems, as well as their publishers for
permission to select what I chose from their works ; especially Messrs. J. R.
Osgood & Co., by whom the greater number are published.
R. H. STODDAKD.
NEW YOKE, July 23, 1873.
CONTENTS.
IW MWDtTCTrOS PAOB O
MRS. ANNE BRADSTREET.
A Contemporary of Spenser and Shakspere 17
Editions of her Poems published in Boston and London 17
John Woodbridge's Account of her and her Works 17
Du Bartas the Fashionable Poet of the Age 18
Verses to her, and Notices of her, by Nath. Ward, B. Wood-
bridge, John Norton, Cotton Mather, and President Rogers. IS
Extracts from her Poems addressed to her Husband 19
An Elegy upon the Death of her Grandchild 19
Verses in her old Age upon the Death of her Daughter-in-law. 19
Her Death, Character, and Descendants 19
Extract from the Prologue to the Four Elements 19
Extract from Contemplations 20
MRS. MERCY WARREN.
Social Position and Connexion with Public Affairs 21
Notice of her Satire entitled The Group, with Extracts 21
Notices of her Tragedies, The Sack of Rome, and The Ladies
of Castile, with Extracts 22
Extracts from other Poe.ns 22
Things necessary to the Life of a Woman 23
Acquaintance with John Adams and Washington 23
History of the American Revolution 23
Character, and Rochefoucault's Opinion of her 23
MRS. ELIZABETH GRAEME FERGUSON.
Society in Philadelphia before the Revolution 24
Mrs. Ferguson's Family— Disappo'ntment in Love— Voyage to
Europe — Acquaintance with Laurence Sterne, &c 24
Her Marriage, and Relations with the Whigs and Tories 25
Connexion with Dr. Duche, and Affair of General Reed 25
Her later Years 25
Character of her Poems and Translations 25
Invocation to Wisdom 26
fri
Telemachi.
26
The Procession of Calypso '2fi
Apollo with the Flocks of King Admctus 27
The Invasion of Love 27
MRS. ANNE ELIZA BLEECKER.
Early Years, Marriage, and Removal to Tomhanick 28
Extract from a Poem descriptive of her Home 28
Extracts from Verses addressed to Mr. Bleecker 28
Flight from Tomhanick on the Approach of the British Army.. 28
Lines written on this Event 28
Visit to New York, last Return to Tomhanick, and Death 29
MRS. PHILLIS WHEATLEY PETERS.
Purchased while a Child, in the Boston Slave Market 30
Her early Acquirements and the Interest they excited .30
Visits London, and is introduced to Lady Huntingdon 30
Curious Address to the Public respecting her, by the Governor
of Massach usetts, and Others SO
Loses her Master, and marries fora Home 30
The Abbe Gregoire's Account of her 30
Her Husband a " handsome Man and a Gentleman" 31
She quarrels with him without good Reason 31
General Washington's Letter to her 31
Her inedited MSS. now in Philadelphia 31
Mr. Jefferson compares her to the Heroes of the Dunriad 31
Opinions respecting her by Gregoire, Clarkson, and others 31
On the Death of the Rev. Mr. George Whitefield 32
Extract from a Poem On the Imagination 32
A Farewell to America 32
MRS. SUSANNAH ROWSON.
Her Father a British Officer in New England 33
Her Marriage in London and Literary Life there 33
Great Sale of her Charlotte Temple 33
Her Character and Career as an Actress 3:3
Retires from the Stage, and establishes a School in Boston 33
Account of her Works - 33
America, Commerce, and Freedom 34
Kiss the Brim, and Let it Pass 34
Thanksgivixg 34
MRS. MARG/vRETTA V. FAUGERES.
A Daughter of Mrs. Bleeoker 35
Unfo
,ofh
SB
Review of her Belisarhtt, a. Tragedy 35
Extract from her Poem on The Hudson 37
Vtrt€t addressed to the Members of the Cincinnati 37
MISS ELIZA TOWNSEND.
Mr. Nicholas Biddle's Opinion of her Prize Ode r*o» 38
She is educated during a Period of singular Excitement 33
Southey's Ode on Napoleon, written in 1814, like hers of 1809.. 38
Dr. Cheever's Commendation of one of her Poems 38
An Occasional Ode, written in June, 1809 39
Poem To Robert Smtthey, wiitten in 1812 41
The Incomprehensibility of God 42
Another " Castle in the Air" 43
Extract from a Poem On the Death of C has. Brockdcn Brotvti. 43
MRS. LAVINIA STODDARD.
Her History and Character 44
The Sours Dejiance 44
Sons 44
MISS HANNAH F. GOULD.
Her Father 45
Sprightliness and Individuality of ber Genius 45
A Name in the Sand 45
Changes on the Deep 48
The Scar of Lexington 47
The Snow Flake 47
The Winds 48
The Frost 48
The Waterfall 43
The Moon upon the Spire 49
The Robe 49
The Consignment 49
The Winter Burial 60
The Pebble and the Acorn 60
The Ship is Ready 50
The Child on the Beach 51
The Midnight Mail 61
MRS. CAROLINE OILMAN.
Marries Dr. Gilman, and resides in South Carolina 52
Notices of her Prose Writings and Poems '. 52
Rosalie 52
The Plantation 54
Music on the Canal 55
The Congressional Burying-Ground 65
To the Ursulines 56
Return to Massachusetts 66
Annie in the Graveyard 66
MRS. SARAH JOSEPHA HALE.
Her Marriage and subsequent Literary Studies 57
Publishes The Genius of Oblivion and other Poems 67
Character of Northwood and her other Prose Works 67
Editor of The Ladies'1 Magazine, the Lady's Book, &c 57
Publishes Three Hours, or the Vigil of Love, and other Poems.. 57
Her Ormond Grosrenor, Harry Guy, and other Poems 58
Extent of her Writings, and their Character 58
The Mississippi. f>9
The Ftnir-Leoved Clover 60
Description of Alice Ray 60
Iron 61
The Watcher 61
I Sing to Him 63
The Light (if Home 62
The Two Maidens 64
MRS. ANNA MARIA WELLS.
Her Husband an Author 63
Publication of her Poems, in 1830 63
*•««»<* «»
The Tamed Eagle 63
The Old Elm-Tree 64
Anna 64
The Future 64
The White Hare &
The Sea-Bird 65
MISS MARIA JAMES.
Her Poems published by Bishop Potter 66
Her own Account of her Life 66
Ode for the Fourth of July 67
The Pilgrims 67
The Soldier's Grave <*
Too Singing-Bird 6»
Good Friday ••- ^
10
CONTENTS.
MRS. MARIA BROOKS, (Maria del Occidents)
Her Early Life passed in the Vicinity of Boston PAGE 69
Changs of Fortune described, in an Extract from Idomen 69
Publishes Judith, Esther, unit other Poems 69
:>f this Voli
TO
Cvpidtkt Runaway, from the Greek of Moschus 70
Death of her Husband, Residence in Cuba, and Travels 70
Mr. Southey superintends the 1'ublication of Zophiel 70
Verses addressed to him 70
Review of '/.ophiel, with Extracts 71
Creative Energy. Passion, and Delicacy, exhibited in it 79
Its Publication in Huston 79
Opini .us D|' it by .Sunthey, Cluirles Lamb, and others, (Note,).. 79
Mrs. Brookf'l Residence at West Point and Fort Columbus... 79
Prints Id-mien, for Private Circulation 79
Her Lifeund Character illustrated in tliat Work 80
Visits her Estate in Cuba 80
Extru-ts from her Letters 80
Her Death 80
Further Extracts from Zop/iiel 8L
Ode ott Revisiting Cu/ia 83
Ode to the Depai ted 84
Hymn »6
The Moon of Flowers 86
Tothe River St. Lawrence 87
To Niagara 88
Verses Written on Seeing Pharamond 88
Prayer 88
Song 89
Friendt/t ij> 89
Farewell to Cuba 89
•IRS. JULIA RUSH WARD.
Marries .Samuel Ward, the Banker 90
Literary Society in New York at this Period 90
"Sije te perd, je suis perdu" ^ 9U
MRS. LYDIA HUNTLEY S1GOURNEY.
Her Early Life 91
Publication of her Moral Pieces, in Prose and Verse HI
Marries Mr. Charles Sigourney 91
Keview of Traits of the Aborigines 91
Works in Prose and Verse, for Twenty Years 9-2
SI
Review of I'ocahontas 9-2
Her Pleasant Memorief of Pleasant Lands, &c 92
Her P
.ud Mt
Mr. Alexander H. Everett's Opinion of her Poems 93
The Western Emigrant 94
The Pilgrim Fathers 94
W*>ie- 95
Niagara 95
The Alpme Flowers 95
Napoleon's Epitaph 96
The Death if an Infant 96
M'tio,/,, on Mrs. Hemant 97
The Mother of Washington 97
The Country Church 98
Solitude 98
Sunset on the Allegany 98
The Indian Girl's Burial 99
Indian Names 99
A Butterfly on a Child's Grave 9<j
Monody on the late Daniel Wadsworth ] 00
Advertisement of a Lost Day 1 00
Farewell to a Rural Residence 101
A Widow at her Daughter's Bridal. - 101
MRS. KATHARINE A. WARE.
Edits T/ie fioiver(f Taste 102
Hesi.lence abroad, and Death, in Paris 102
Her Power ->f the Passions, and other Poems m-i
Loss of the First- Born u>2
Madness 103
A New Year's Wish c ." 1 0:j
Ma rks of Time 1 03
MRS. JANE L. OKAY.
Her Residence on the Forks of the Delaware 104
James Montgomery's Opinion of a Poem by her 104
Two Hundred Years .Igo 104
SaMialh Reminiscence! J 05
Morn 10(3
MRS. SOPHIA L. LITTLE.
A Daughter of the Jurist and Statesman Ashnr Rohl.ins 107
Notices of he' Works .....107
Tht Pot: 10?
Thanksgiving 108
URS. LYD1A MARIA CHILD
On"! of our most brilliant Pn.se Writers 110
Man.ts amid the Ruins of Carthage 110
Litiri c* hearing a Buy mock the Soundofa Clock no
MRS. LOUISA J. HALL.
Educated by Dr. Park, her Father
Her feeble Constitution
Circumstances under which Miriam was written..
Her Joanna of Naples, and other Works
Review of Miriam, with Extracts
Character of the Work
Justice and Mercy
A Dramatic Fragment
MRS. ELIZA L. FOLLEV.
Death of her Husband, Professor Charles Follen.
Her Writings
Sachem', Hill ."I!...'"".'.....
Winter Scene in the Country I".'.....
Evening
MRS. FRANCES H. GREEN.
The Misfortunes of her Father
She writes a Memoir of Eleanor Elbricige, Ac
The Mechanic, by her, commended by Mr. Brownsi
Notice of Nanuntenoo
P1G1 III
Ill
Ill
Ill
11J
117
..lid
..'21
..111
..ill
..123
..122
Her Songt of the Winds, and other Poems
Opinions in Philosophy and Religion
New England Summer in the Ancient Time
A Sarragansett Sachem
Songofthe North Wind
Song of the East Wind
Song of Winter
The Ch ickadee's Song
The Honey- Bee's Song
MRS. JESSIE G. McCARTEE.
A Descendant of Isabella Graham
Character of her Poems
The Indian Mother's Lament
T/te Eagle of the Falls
Death-Song of Moses
How Beautiful is Sleep
MISS CYNTHIA TAGGART.
H er interesting H istory
Letter from Dr. John VV. Francis respecting her.
Merit of her Writings
Ode to the Poppy
Invocation to Health....
On a Storm
MRS. FRANCESCA PASCALIS CANF1ELD.
The Scientific Labors of her Father
Dr. Mitchill's Valentine to her
Her Learning ami Accomplishments
Unfortunate Marriage, and Death
Verses To Dr. Mitchill
Edith
MISS ELIZABETH BOGART.
Writings under the Signature of " Estelle"
An Autumn View, from my Window
Retrospection.
Forgerf, finest '
He Came too Late
MRS. MARY E. BROOKS.
Marriage with James G. 75rooks
Publishes The Rivals of Ette, and other Poems...
Death of Mr. Brooks
The Close of the Year
A Pledge to the Dying Year
" Weep not for the Dead"
Dream of Life
MRS. MARGARET ST. LEON LOUD.
Her KesMence in the South
Mr. Poe's Opinion of her Writings
A Dream of the Lonely Isle
The Deserted Homestead
Pra <ier for an Absent Husband
Rest in 'the Grave....
..123
..123
..123
.123
..123
,.123
.124
.124
.125
.127
.128
.129
.130
.130
.131
.131
.131
.131
-. 132
.132
.133
.133
.133
.133
.134
.134
.134
..137
..137
MR?. EMMA C. EMBURY.
Publishes Guido and other Poems
Character of her Tales
Her Nature's Gems, and other Worns
Two I 'ortraitf. from Life
Tlie Duke of Reichstadt
Sympathy
Autumn Evening
Harp..
The .Kolin
Unrest
T!ie Old Man's Lame,
The American River..
Tht English River... ,
.139
.139
.140
.140
.140
.141
.141
.141
.142
.14-7
.14-]
.143
.143
.143
.143
.144
.144
.144
.i4S
.145
.14.1
.145
.145
.146
CONTENTS.
11
MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY, (CONTINUED.)
BcMa'J.
Cheerfulness
The Widwft Woo<r
Madame de Sluel
Heart Questionings
Never Forg et
PAGE 147
147
147
148
148
148
MISS ELIZABETH MARGARET CHANDLER.
A Member of tlie Society of Friends 149
Removal to Michigan, and Death there 149
Her Works 149
The I) e cote d. 149
T/te Battle- Field 150
A Revolutionary Soldier's Prayer 150
The Brandt/wine 151
MISSES LUCRETIA AND MARGARET DAVIDSON.
Their Genius and Interesting Character 152
The First Compositions of Lucretia Davidson 152
Verses on the Grave of Wa>hingion 153
Visits Canada 1 53
Lines to her Infant Sister 153
Writes Amir Khan 153
Her Death 153
Memoirs of her by Mr. Morse and Miss Sedgwick 153
Her Poem addressed to Mrs. Townsend 153
To a Slur 153
A Prophecy 1 54
Auction Extraordinary 154
Address to her Mother 154
On the Fear uf Madness lr,5
Effect ofher Death upon Margaret Davidson 155
Margaret's Education , , 155
Verses, " / would Jiy from the City" 155
Changes of Residence 155
Her Death 156
Lenore to the Spirit of Lticretia 156
Stanzas tn her Mother 156
The Writings of M rs. Davidson 156
MRS. MARY E. STEBBINS.
Poems under the Signature of " lone1' 157
Publishes Songs of our Land, and other Poems 157
Character of her Poerns 157
The Songs of our Land 157
The Two Voices 158
The Axe of the Settler 158
A Thought of the Pilgrims 159
The City by the Sea 169
1\e Sunflower to the Sim 160
The Last Chant of Corinne 160
Green Places in the City 160
Cameos 160
A Yarn 161
Imitation of Sappho 161
Love's Pleading 16-2
The Hearth of Home 162
The Launch 162
The Ode of Harold the Valiant 163
Lay 163
MRS. SUSAN R. A. BARNES.
Characteristics of her Works 164
The Army of the Cross lt,5
Penitence 1 55
MRS. SARAH HELEN WHITMAN.
Descended from a Companion of Roger Williams 166
The Career and Death of her Husband Ifi6
Her Acquirements, and Writings in Prose 166
Her Fairy Tales 166
Remarkable Merits of her Poems 166
The Sleeping Beauty 167
Line* irrilten in November 169
A Still Day in Autumn 169
" A Green and Silvery Spot among the Hills" 170
The Waking of the Heart 170
A Day of the Indian Summer 171
Translation of The Lost Church 172
The Past 172
A September Day on the Banks of the Moshassitck 173
Summer's Invitation to the Orphan 173
Bridal Ring.
Stt
"She Blooms no more" 174
The Maiden's Dream '. 174
Poem before the Rhode Island Hist. Soc., upon Roger Williams.. 176
"Hoio softly comes the Summer Wind" 175
A Smis of Spring 176
On a Statue of David ...176
MRS. ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH.
Her Descent from the Pilgrims PAGE 177
Her Marriage 177
Circumstances under which she has written 177
Remarks on The Sinless Child, with Extracts 178
Her D ramas 1 79
Review of The Roman Tribute, with Extracts 180
Review of Jam/, Leisler, a Tragedy 18-J
Scene from Jacob Leisler 183
Her Prose Works 183
Writings nnder the Name of" Ernest Helfenstein" 183
H»>r Hank among the Female Poets 183
Tim Acorn 1^4
The Drowned Mariner 1 86
Totlu Hudson i*}
Sonnets- 1^7
I- Poesy lift
II. The Bard 187
III. An Incident 187
IV. The Unattained 187
V. The Wife W7
VI. Religion 187
VII. The Dream 1*7
VIII. Wayfarers ..".IW
1 X., X. Heloise to Abelard 188
XI. Despondency )»8
XII. Love 188
XIII. "Look not behindThee" 188
XI V. Charity in Despair of Justice 188
XV. The Great Aim 1 88
XVI. Midnight 188
XVII. Jealousy 189
Ecce Homo 189
Ode to Sappho 189
Love Dead 190
Stanzas 190
Endurance 190
Ministering Spirits 19]
The Recall, or Soul Melody 191
The Water ;..... 191
The Brook 191
The Cou-.ry Maiden 193
Ttie April Rain 19C
Atheism >93
Let Me be a Fantasy 194
Strength from the Hills 194
Eros and Anteros 194
The Poet 19*
MRS. E. C. KINNEY.
Account of her Writings 190
Characterized, by a Correspondent 195
To the Eagle 195
Ode : To the Moon 196
The Spirit of Song 197
Extract from The Quakeress Bride 197
Sonnets: 198
I. Cultivation 198
II. Encouragement 198
III. Fading Autumn 198
I V. A Winter Nighj 198
V. To the. Greek Slave 11V
VI. To Arabella 19?
The Woodman 194
MRS. ELIZABETH F. ELLET.
Hei Domestic Connexions 19S
Translates Euphemia of Messina 199
Production of her Teresa Conrarini 199
Papers in the Reviews 199
Her Characters of Schiller, Joanna of Sicily, and other Works . . 199
Characteristics ofher Poems 1W
Snsqnehannah 200
Lake Ontario 201
The Delaware Water-Gap 201
Insensibility 201
Love, in Youth and Age 201
SodusBay 202
"O'er the Wild Waste" 202
Song 202
The old Love - 2l )3
The Sea-Kings 203
Venice
Sonnetti '204
I. Mary Magdalen 204
II. Tlie* Good Shepherd 204
III. "Oh, Weary Heart" *»*
" Abide with Us" • 204
The Persexaed 20«
A Dirge 2°*
TheBuriil. *°»
CONTENTS.
.MKS. JCI.IA H. SCOTT.
Her Early Lite and lie.iutif.il Char»< ter
II »T M;irri:i-f, Mini Death
U.-r PotlM pnbtt h.-d by Mis- K i- irti.n
7V 7Vo <7rai>«
./>/./ c/i,/,/
•rum in I'nflry
MRS. ANNA I'EYKF. MINNIES.
Mrs. l!:,i,.'s AfiCOMrtofhei Marriage
Sin- writ.-* under tli.- BJflMtttn of " Moin;t"
Publish.- 7V l''l<,ri.il IVar
If'-ddrd Lm-e
toi 205
206
....206
206
207
. . . . 207
203
208
;•.•„, /,/,-,„< .................................................... 209
7V 7V »r Ballad -:f a H;,Hderrr ............................. 20!)
MRS. ANN S. STEPHENS.
The Spi.it .ind Poj.ulaiity of her Prose Writings .............. 210
7V 01,1 .-/,)/,/<• Tree ....................................... 210
MRS. V. K ST. .JOHN.
E\t.-nt of her Productions ................................... 211
Medusa, fr <m tin .Iniiijne Cameo ............................. 211
MRS. 3ARAI! I.iiClSA P. SMITH.
A (iranddauihrerofr.eneral Hull ............................ 212
I miiel .Jenks Smith .......................... 212
.-I' Etteidmee, :..id Literary ArUvity ................. 212
II. r Death. and the Character of her Poems ................. 212
T:,f Ihima .................................................. 212
White Roses ................................................. 212
Xl.mz,,* ..................................................... 2J3
We Fall of 11'anaw ........................................ 213
MR.-. SOPHIA HKI.K.N OLIVER.
Herl'oem* .................................................. 214
" / murk the I fours that S/tine" ............................... 21 4
Tl.e Cloud Ship .............................................. 214
The Shadows ................................................ 215
.17. nistrrins Spirits ..................... .................... 215
MISS MARY E. I.KK.
H.-r P.alhd-t and other Poems ................................ 216
The Potts ................................................... 216
A>i F.asfcrn Lore-Kong ...................................... 216
The Last Place of Sleep ...................................... 216
MRS CATHERINE H. ESL1NG.
r. Come Home" ..................................... 217
' //, KMJ our Puttier's Darling" ............................. 217
MRS. CAROM NT. M. S A \\ V K II.
Her Early Education ........................................ 218
Acquaintance with Foreign Literatures ....................... 218
Disadvantageous Channels of Publication ..................... 218
............................................ 218
Intidr/itii iiinl Religion ..'. .................................... 21!)
The J'alley of Pence ......................................... 219
Tht Boy and hit .hi-^i ...................................... 220
Tfie Laihi t>f Lurid .......................................... 2-iI
'/•- II •' /:.„. >n. itrnnre .................................... 221
M'/ .S-,V,y.,,,- Clti/ilrt-n ....................................... ?22
*l,it,t,j>,ic .............................................. 223
The ll'tirri'i-'s Dirge ........................................ 224
Kenyan .......... '. ......................................... 224
I'ebblei ..................................................... 224
MRS- MXKCiARKT L. ItAII.EY.
Her Editorial Labors ........................................ 2C5
H. -i Poem .................................................. 225
.............................................. 225
Thr J'tii'ii, r ( 'lulil's liiirinl, .................................. 225
MemM-ui .................................................... 226
.1 i;, ,'•,!', 1 ........................................... 226
MKS. I.U'K \ M. TUUKSTON.
1,,-r in Indiana ............................... 227
Munface, tnd D**tt ........................................ 227
Vida" ....................... 227
'• 7V Orttn l/,/:- if my r,ith,rlnml" ........................ 2:7
....................... 227
Miss MARTHA n \V.
H.-r Utomy R.-ni.,inMiubli>hed by Prof.-sor Kii.--l.-y 2:8
H;.«n •-'-'*
'•// 228
miss -»i \I;Y i«H H \NMKK DODD.
Her Litt-rary As>... iitinus 229
rubll-atiMii • f li.-r PoeiiM 2:9
i,,,t,tnt 229
7Vi, • M.,i,rn, r 22'»
'io ., CHdM 2:10
'/•/,, IH-ramer 2:50
fVif Dort't I'ifit 231
231
MKS. ANNE O. BOTTA.
H.-i Katlier one of the United Irishmen »*o» 232
H.-r Ediu-atiori 232
Literary Soirees 2;5i
Chara.-teristirs of her Poems 232
7V Ideal 233
The Me,il Found 2*1
Tht Image Uroken 8$J
Tli, Untile tif Life 234
Tlfni^ iits In n Lihi ani -35
Hngar ' *•*
To the Memory of Channing 235
A Thought lui the Seashore 236
The Jhnnh Creation '-236
The Wounded V,:lture 238
F.rni 237
To ,in Obscurity 2;57
To , with Flnwert 2.17
0,i „ 1'icture of llarccy Birch 2:57
Sotmeti: 238
I. Love + 238
II. The L,,ke and the Star 238
III. A Remembrance 238
I V. The Sun and Storm 238
V. To 238
VI. The Honey- Bee 238
VII. Aspiration 238
VIII. To the Savior 238
IX. Faith 2:s9
Kones in the Desert -~....SW
Chriil Betrayed 239
Tlte Wasted Fountain* 240
I'm il I 'reaching- at Athens 240
SIRS. EMILY JUDSON.
Her Wriiiiigs tiuderthe Pseudonym of" Fanny Forester11 241
Publication of Alderbrook 241
Marriage to the Missionary Judson 241
Goes to India 24-1
H.T .•Ittarogn, the Maid of the Rock, in Four Cantos 242
The Weaver 242
Miniitcring Angels 543
To my Mother '243
To Spring 244
Death 244
L, -his t/nd Shades 244
to Earth 245
Aspiring to Heaven 245
The lluds ,f the Sarimac 245
My Bird 245
MRS. ELIZABETH JESUP EAMES.
Contributions to the Periodicals 246
Cr*mi*f»SP«r**k 246
Tlie Death of Pan 247
Cleopatra 247
MyMothtr 247
Sonnett: 248
1. Milton 24U
1 1 . Drtiden 248
III. Addisim 243
IV. T,i»o 243
V., VI. 7V Author of " The Sinless Child" 248
VII. Tiie I'nst 84 8
VIII. Diem I'erdidi 249
1 X . , X . Ho ,,ks 249
On the /'iftnre of a Departed Peetefs 249
r
.9 i'.i
Flairers in n S,ck-R,iom }4S
MR^. I MKI.I.NK S. SMITH.
Publication of Tlte Fai'-y', Search, and other Poem* 250
Hymn to the Deity, in the Contemplation of Nature 260
" We've h,iti our Xht.re of Bliss, Beloved" 2oC
MAI:«; VIJKT I-TLLKK, MAIUMIIONKSS D'OSSOLI.
Her Rank amonj; the Writ.-rs of her Sex 251
Governor Everett receiving the Indian C/iiefs, Sic 251
Thr Sin-red Marriage 253
Sonnets : 252
I. Orjiheut 25J
II. Instrumental Music 253
III. Beethoven , 253
IV. Mo-.art 253
V. T, ll'iifhin-ton Alhtim't Picture, " The Bride" 2/%3
To Kdith, on her Birthday 2,53
Lin,s it-ritten in Illinois 253
On Leaving the Wett 2.54
Ganymede to his Ea git 234
Life a Temple 255
Kw.inraeemeiU 256
GunhiUlu 36J
CONTENTS.
13
MUS. LYDIA JANE PEIRSON.
Her Early History ................................. Pics 256
Anecdote of Mrs. Peirson and Thaddeus Stevens ........... 256
Her Purest Minstrel, and Purest Leaves ...................... 256
NX Song .................................................... 256
MH Muse .................................................... 257
To an &olinn Harp ......................................... 257
To the Wood Robin .......................................... 258
The mid mood Home ......................................... 258
Isabella ..................................................... 258
Sunset in the Forest .................... '. .................... 259
Tlte last Pale Flowers ....................................... 259
To t/te Woods ............................................... 259
MRS. JAXK TAYLOR WORTH1NGTON.
Her Connexion* in Virginia .................................. 260
Marriage, Writings, Death ................................... 260
TvthePeakofQtttr ......................................... MO
Lines, to One who will wide, stand Them ...................... 260
Moonlight on the Grave ...................................... 261
The Child'! Grave ........................................... 261
The Poor ................................................... 261
Sleep ........................................................ 262
To Twilight ................................................. 262
Tlte Withered Leaves ........................................ 262
MRS. SARAH ANNA LEWIS.
Publishes Records of the Heart ............................... 263
Tfie forsaken, by her, compared with a Poem by Motherwell. .263
Review .,f her Child of the Sea, with Extracts ................ 264
Extract from Isabelle, or the Broken Heart .................... 265
Lament of La I'cga, in Captivity ............................ 266
Una ........................................................ 266
The Dead ................................................... 266
MRS. ANNA CORA MO WATT RITCHIE.
Notice of her Father .................................. ....... 267
Her IJirth and Education, abroad ............................. 267
Early Predilection fur the Stage .......... . ................... 267
Story of her Marriage ....................................... 267
Publishes Pelayo, or the Cavern ofCoeadonga ................ 267
Residence in Europe ........................................ 267
Publishes Evelyn, Fashion, and other Works ................. 267
Her Theatrical Career ....................................... 267
Visit to England ............................................. 268
The Raising of J aims' Daughter ............................ 268
My Life .................................................... 269
Love ........................................................ 2K9
269
Tlty Will be done
On a Lock of my Mother's Hair
MRS. MARY NOEL MEIGS, (McDONALD.)
Publishes TVenwty M.N.M. ................................ 270
j,,ne ........................................................ 270
The Spells of Memory ....................................... 271
lane's Aspirations ........................................... 271
MRS. FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD.
Literary Abilities in her Family ............................... 272
Writings under the Signature of" Florence" .................. 272
Marriage to Mr. O->good the Painter .......................... 272
____ 272
Reside
i in Londc
Publishes A Wreath of Wild Flowers from New England 272
Her later Works 272
Her Genius, 273
Farewell too Happy Day 273
"Had we but met" 273
To the Spirit of Poetry 274
Rejections 274
Ltnare 274
The Cocoa -Nut Tree 275
A Mother's Prayer in Illness 275
Little Children 276
A Sermon 276
To a Child Playing with a Watch 276
Labor 277
Garden Gossip 277
To a Friend 277
Kurydice 278
Lady Jane 278
Ida's Farewell 279
To a Dear little Truant, n-ho wouldn't come. Home 279
The Unexpected Declaration 279
Slan-.a,i for Music -^
Tlte F/ovjer Love Letter 280
A Weed 281
Tn Sleep 281
Silent hove ••- - • • • ^^
Beauty's Prayer 281
Dream-Music, or the Spirit Flute 282
New En S lanfi Mountain- Child 283
Ashes of Rosei ***
Xtng , " Its, lower to the level" 2SS
MRS. FRANCES SARGENT OSGOOD, (COSTISUED.)
The Soil's Lament for Home PACK 285
Song, " She loves Him yet".. .
No;
Song, " Should all who throng"
"Hois Tan Sung, Beaumanoir"
Caprice
Song, " I loved an Ideal"
Aspirations
MISS LUCY HOOPER.
Writings und.«r the Signature of " L. H."
Lines written o». visiting Newburyport
Her Works in Prose
Lettei upon her Death, from Dr. John W. Francis
Poem on the same Subject, by J. G. Whittier
Sonnet to her Memory, by H^ T. Tuckerman
Publication of her Literary Remains
The Summons of Death
Time, Faith, Energy
Last Hours of a Young Poeteit
The Turquoise Ring
" Give me Armnr of Proof "
The Cavalier's last Hours
The Daughter of Hcrodias
Evening Thoughts
Linen
The Old Days we Remember
Lines suggested by a Scene in "Master Humphrey's Clock"...
Life and Death
Legends of Flowers
Osceola
MRS. SARAH EDGARTON MAYO.
Her Life arid Writings
The Supremacy of God
The last Lay
The fieggar's Death-Scene
Types of Heaven
The Shadow Child
Udollo
Crossing the Moor
MISS SARAH L. JACOBS.
Ttie Changeless World
Ilenedelta
A }'csper
" Ul,i Amor, Ibi Fides"
MRS. LUELLA J. B. CASE.
The Indian Relic
Energy in Adversity
La Revenante
A Death- Scene
Death leading Age to Repose
MRS. SARAH T. BOLTON.
Lines suggested l>y an Anecdote of S. F. B. Marie
TheSpiraof Truth
Kentucky's Dead
MISS HANNAH J. WOODMAN.
The Annunciation
" When n-i/t tliou love Me?"
MISS SUSAN ARCHER TALLEY.
Compared with Jarne
Variety of her Abiliti*
My Sister -
Tlu: Sea- Shell
MRS. RKHECCA S. NICHOLS.
Publishes lin-nice, and other Poems
To my Boy in Heaven
My Sixter Ellen
Farewell of the Soul to the Body
Lament of the Old Year
The Isle <f Dreams
Tlte Shadow •
Little Nell •
The little Flock
Ml
.HI
.SM
.••< ;
Mu
.811
i 7
111
• H
.311
.319
.. i
M
. BQ
MRS. JULIA WARD HOWE.
Extract from the Lifeof Schlesinger.byher Brother, Sam. Ward
The Beauty of her Poems
The Burial of Schlesinger
Wordsworth
To a Beautiful Statue
Lees from the r.up of Life
" Sptak, for thy Servant heareth"
A Mother's Fears.
11
CONTENTS.
MRS AM KM. A I! WKI.IiV.
\v, i-i,._. no ;, r UK -,_»i:unre of " Amelm
Publi.itj.Mi ,,f her rot-Mi*
Tli'-ir Cli-ini ler
7V /:„,„>„,„•
/'»//>„• r'J,,,,,ienre
On l-:nten,,K tl,e .M,,mm,*h Cave
Lore
7V Old .M,,id
«o« 325
326
:;n
:;.s
328
329
To a Srn-Shell 329
7V Laxt Interview 3:50
My Sifter* 3:50
TII, I. .n if St,]> Son
The I 'moire of Had
331
332
MRS. CATH. VVAHK1KM) ANM) M IIS. ELEANOR T.KE.
Tlie H'.fr ,,/• \.r m, fcc., by " Two <i,ter- of tlie We.st" ....... 333
The India,, Clta ,„/„,; and ot/irr J'ocmt ....................... 3.53
Tl ...... Work. . n!i. i<ed ...................................... 333
Their ..tlier Writings ........................................ 333
..................................................... 334
It,, nk ,,n the 1'rairie ........................................ 335
Lr£,,,d of the Italian Chamber ............................... 3:57
" Sl,e nnuft tii Me" ......................................... 3:59
"lira/kin Dream, nf 1'octry" ............................... 340
..................................................... 340
Tltf lS,rdal' H
The Deserted rloutt...,
HISS SUSAK IMNDAK.
The Lady Lcnnorc .
Laiiralie
. . . 343
...343
...344
Thmighti tn Sfirins-Time
MISS CAROLINE MAY.
H-i Po*m», tc ,
The Sahhath at' the Year
T-i a Student
Semteut
1. On a i-arm Nm-emlier l)iy..
II. On th, t/ijirani-h of Winter. .
III. Thought
IV. ll>i/ie
V. Memnry
Lilie*
Ta Nature....
..... 346
..... 3-46
..... 346
..... 347
_____ 347
..... 347
..... 347
..... 347
.347
AI.H'K »;. IIAVKX.
Write* uncl^i Hi-- Si-nature of "Alice G. Lee" 349
K.IlN Ntafl Saturday Ga-.ette 349
The llrid, 's t'unt'xxion 340
Miilniihi ami Dnyhreuk 341)
Tlie < 'It itrr/t 3^9
H"»'t :ioO
A M,- in in- ii 35j
WltS CAROI.INK H. CUANDr.KH.
Tn mi, Ural her 353
MISS KM/A I.. S1MIOAT.
Tlie /V,.,,,,,,-',- f v.iW 353
A i'en' Sinni Xnnlitiim* 353
'• ' .'."-".".".'384
MIJS. 1IAKKIKT I. IS/.T, (WINSLOW.)
ll'/ii, tins I.,., i 3g4
MliS. .MM II T M. I.. CAMIM5KI.L.
II' r I', uly Culture 355
'. 3S->
356
. - • /' .VI/H r, -e 366
Ml-- M.I-K .M - I ]\i: ]'. \VAKD.
Horn ..I" :tn Hi-torir:il K:in,ily 3;>7
II, T NVri'i.,--, Mini II.T Alpihli.-H 357
A I-',,,,,,;, I Chant /',»• iltt 01,1 \;,,r :;.-)7
-i Old 1'inna 3,-,S
Si''"'" ""I /•'""".'/ 3.r,8
Thf .V,,i and the Sovereign
. :lt .. -)(J
HISS I.ITY I.\|;<-(1M.
A K.I' -torv (iirl ;it I.owcll O^Q
K\tr:n I bum .1. (i. \Vhiiti.-r, r,--j,,-, tj,,; i.er .:w
r'.h-l,,, and li,f ttmgti " " 360
vv /;„,-„;„, /v,,,,,, .....".".".".981
• EDITH M \V."
She wntc- ini'lfr ;i \,n,imr tie J'lnme 3f;.-,
Tlie Clrir.n li-r ol IIIT li'-nim 3
'""
'EDITH MAY," (ros
// \tnrm at Tn-ili^ht .
W.)
Juliette. .
Summer
A F'u-fft Srs.ne.
A J'oet't Love..
A Son •_' fin- Ant
364
.364
.366
A True Story of ,i Fawn .............................
MISSES FRANCES A. AND MKTTA V. FULLER.
Tlieir Writin-s for the " Home Journal" ..............
.3f>7
. 367
The Old Ma,,'* Favorite ..............................
(II.) The I'fift/ioy't Sung .................................
Midn ight _____ .........................................
T)u Silent .Ship .......................................
The Spirit of my Song ................................
MISSES ALICE AND PHfEBE CAREY.
Circiinr<trtT)ce.s unfavorable to their Development ......
Extract from a Letter by Alice Carey .................
Poems of A lice and Phcehf Carey contrasted ...........
(1.) 'Ilie Handmaid ......................................
llinnn of the New Man ..............................
Palestine .............................................
OldSloriet ............................... ! ...........
1'irtnre* of Mem,**, ..................................
The Tiro Msslonat ies ...................
n*i»n, of Light ...................... . ................
}fe/v,, ................................................
The Time to be .......................................
..oro
..370
-.371
..372
. . 372
. . 372
. . 372
..373
..373
-.373
..374
...374
. . 374
A Legend of St. Mary',
Watching
An Evening Tale
George Biirro»gh*
Light, of Geniuf
Death's Ferryman
Sailor'* Song
To the Evening Zephyr
Minings hy Three Grave*
(II.) The Lorcri;
Beat-in* Life'* Burdens
Resotrcs
Light in Darknert
The Wife of Beitierei '.'.'. .".'.'.'.
Tfte FoUotem of Christ
Sympathy ""
.Son -r a f the Heart
Tlie 1' isoncr'i Last fright
Mtmin-ie.* '.."
Eijitalto Either Fortune
Caming /fame "..."
The Christian Woman
Death Scene ...".
Lyre at tlie Grave
MISS MARY LOCKHART LAWSON.
Lncien IJonapaite'.s Opinion oflier Father
Her English and Scotti.-li Poems
The lianixhed Lover ."
Believe it _"
The Haunted Heart
-.375
..375
..376
-.376
-.377
. . 377
..378
..378
..378
-.378
-.379
..380
..380
..381
-.381
..381
..382
.383
..383
.384
.384
.384
.386
MRS. MARIA I.OWKI.L.
Ordinal nrid Translated Poems
J,-sn.i and the Dove
The Maiden's Hanest '.'.'.'.'.".'.'.'.'"
S»ng, " Oh, /linl, thnu dartett to the Sim"
Tlie Morning-Glory
MI'.S. SAKA J. LIIM'INCOTT.
Karly Residence in K<x:liester
Writings under tl.e Signature of " Grace Greenwood"""
II -r (;.-mn8
sfriadne
Dreamt
The Last ^</(- ....!."".!."!""."""'"
A l*>rer to his Faithlett Miftret* "..
Hen-eii ta Nina
"Can<t T/,,,1, /••„,•.,,;•" .....I.J"""I!!!""*'
Ini-ifinion t" M>ih,r F.artli
" There wa* a A'-wc" " "
T,,e .V, ,,/;,/0rV Lore ,
.390
.391
.392
.393
.393
.394
.394
.395
A Dr.aiit.
Darkened Hour* '.'.'.'.'.'.'.".'.'.'.
L,>i-r and During
t W nHHf li.de
MISS \NNK H. I'HILI.IPS.
Writes nn.ler the N;,,,,e of" Helen Irvjn»"
.900
.9M
.397
-:i9S
.3M
Lore a, i,t Fam:.
Kina to Kieii-.i. .
CONTENTS.
15
MRS. ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.
Labi/hood PACK 401
Going to Sleep 401
Loft Behind 401
Endurance 402
Singing in the Rain 402
A Spring Love Song 403
The Amber Rosary 403
October 403
AtLast 404
La*t 404
Forgotten 404
In an Attic 405
October to May 405
Erening 405
Prophecy 405
" My Pearling " 406
When the Leaves are Turning Broirn 406
Consolation 406
A Dream 407
Answer Me 407
The Sparrow at Sea 408
Rock Me to Sleep 408
MRS. ROLLIN COOKE, "ROSE TERRY."
Done For 409
After the Camanches 409
Doubt 409
Cain 410
" Che Sara Sara" 410
Midnight 410
At Last 411
December XXXI . . 411
New Moon 411
Indolence 411
Nemesis 412
Truths 412
A Ch HVs Wish 41 2
The Tu-o Villages 413
Blue Beard's Closet 413
The Iconoclast 413
Semde 414
Departing 414
La, Coquette 414
MRS. ELIZABETH STODDARD.
The Chimney-Swallow'' 8 Idyl 415
Before the Mirror 415
November .415
" Hallo, my Fancy , whither wilt thou go?" 416
On my Bed of a Winter Night 416
The House Inj the Sea, , 416
You Left Me 416
The Poet's Secret 416
A Summer Night 417
The House of Youth 417
The Shadows on the Water Reach 417
Exile 417
A Sea-Side Idyl 418
Unreturning 419
The Colonel's Shield 419
Mercedes 419
The Bull-Fight 420
El Capitano 420
On the Campagna 420
Christmas Comes Again 420
Last Days 421
Memory is Immortal 421
The Message 422
MRS. JULIA C. R. DORR.
Over the Wall 423
•' Earth to Earth " 423
Yesterday and To- Day 424
Agnes 424
Under the Palm Trees 424
The La*t of Six 425
Waiting for Letters 426
Coming Home 426
MRS. JULIA C. R. DORR, (CONTINUED.)
Hidden Away
PAGE 427
Then and Now
427
MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
The Old Psalm Tune
428
The Other World
428
The Secret
429
Think not all is Over
429
The Crocus
429
" Only a Year "
429
Midnight
430
Second Hour
430
A Day in the Pamfili Doria
430
The Gardens of the Vatican
431
MRS. MARY E. BRADLEY.
Peartsease .
432
Miqnonnette
432
Winter-green
433
Beside the Sea
433
A Rhyme of the Rain
434
IntlieNiyht
434
Song
435
The Four-leaved Clover
436
Irrewtmlle
436
Ashet of Roses
436
MISS KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD.
437
Under the Maple
437
The Soid's Quest
438
Jimmy
438
By the Apple Tree
439
Marguerite
439
Mother MicJx.ud
439
In the Set"!
440
440
A Childish Fancy
441
Sixteen and Sixty
441
Awakened
441
442
Sawdust
In Clover
442
MRS. S. M. B. PIATT.
The Fancy Ball
^43
Twelve Hours Apart
443
To-Day
443
Meeting a Mirror
443
Earth in Heaven
444
Last Words
444
The End of the Rainboip
444
Two Blush Roses
445
Of a Parting •
445
A Disenchantment
445
Questions of the Hour
446
A Walk to my own Grave
446
On a Wedding Day
446
MRS. LOUI>E CHANDLER MOULTON.
The Song of a Summer
447
To my Hea rt
447
The Spring is Late
447
A Woman's Waiting
The Singer
....44S
A Weed
449
How Long ? ..-.
449
A Problem • •
449
May-Flowers •
449
MRS. CELIA THAXTER.
Expectation
450
The Sandpiper
450
The Minute-Guns
450
Rock Weeds
451
A. Sumnvr Day
451
November
452
Yellow-Bird
. ...453
MRS. ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY.
Per Tenebras, Lamina
453
16
CONTENTS.
MRS. ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY (CONTINUKD).
BtMndtkt Mink ............... ................. PAGK453
• ................................................ 452
An, thrust ............................................. 454
Released ............................................. 4;->4
};< i uty for Ashfs ..................................... 454
Th,- Three Light* .................................... 454
Sunlight nnd Starlight .................................. 455
Jfenrth-Glow ........................................... 455
••' / ............... ............................... 455
Up in the Wild ....................................... 456
•••'/"/ ........... ............................... 456
The Second Motherhood ................................. 456
The Last Reality ....................................... 455
MRS. HELEN HUNT.
Spinning....^ ....................................... 457
The Prince is Dead .................................... 457
" Spoken " ............................. . .............. 457
Amreetri Wine ......................................... 453
Coronation ............................................. 453
Tryst .................................................. 458
My Strawberry ............................ ........... 459
" Down to Sleep" ...................................... 459
............................. 459
MRS. MARGARET J. PRESTON.
i'ino at Supper ................................... 460
A ndrea's Mistake ..................................... 460
Donna Margherita. .................................... 461
Dorothea's Roses ....................................... 462
In an Eastern Bazaar .................................. 4g3
St. Gregory's Supper ............. ................... 463
The Open Gate .......................................... 454
God's Patience ......................... 464
MISS NORA PERRY.
In June .................................... _^ 465
That Waltz of Von Weber's ............................ 465
Riding Down .................................... " " ' '406
My Lad .y .............................................. 466
.1 nnthrr Year .......................................... 457
After the Ball .......................................... 457
MISS LAURA C. REDDEN.
.Disarmed ............................... 463
Brolcen Off ............................................ 453
!('«/ ,< Out ............................................. 4gg
A Lore. Song of Sorrento ................................ 459
An Empty Ni*t ....................................... '4(59
The Fiellt are Gray with Immortelles .. ............. 470
Xntretfout.
.470
MISS HARRIET McEWEN KIMBALL.
I'i'i Dolorosa 471
My Knowledge 47!
Praying in Sjiirit 471
Humble Service _ _ 47!
MISS HARRIET McEWEN KIMBALL (CONTINUED).
My Friend ....................................... PAGE 472
The Bell in the Tower ................................... 472
AW* Well ............................................. 472
TheGue*t ............................................. 472
MISS EMMA LAZARUS.
In the Jewish Synagogue at Newport ................... 473
On a Tuft of Grass ...................................... 473
Drtams ................................................ 474
Exultation ............................................. 474
Sonnet .................................................. 474
MISS MARIAN DOUGLAS.
My Winter Friend ..................................... 475
Politics ............................................... 475
Wailing .for the May ................................. 475
tfiimney-Top* .......................................... 476
The Yellow Cloud ....................................... 476
The Rope Dancer ....................................... 476
Ant Hills ............................................... 477
The Lost Flowers ............ ........................... 477
One Saturday ........................................... 477
The Song of the Bee .................................... 478
The Year' a Last Flower ................................ 478
* Two Pictures ....... .................................... 478
MRS. LUCY HAMILTON HOOPER.
Revelry ........................... ................... 479
The Duel ................................................ 479
Re-United ............................................. 479
TheKing'sRide ...................................... 480
At the Ball MaUlle ..................................... 480
Touch Not ............................................... 480
MRS. HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD.
A Lovers Garden
At Twilight
Vanity
481
481
Flower Songs ....... .................................... 482
Peace ..... .......................................... 483
Music in the Night ..................... ............... 483
Hereafter .................. .......................... 433
Daybreak .............................................. 483
Nocturne ............................................... 484
Magdalen ............................................. 434
A Sigh ................................................ 484
Alive ............ . .................................. 484
MISS MARY N. PRESCOTT.
A Lullahy ................................ . ............. 435
Rock. Little Nest ....................................... 435
A Tear .......................... .................... 435
To-Day ................................................ 435
Song ............. . ..................................... 435
Two Moods .......................................... 486
A Song ............................................... 435
Asleep ................................ .................. 486
The Brook ............................. ____ 435
ANNE BRADSTREET.
(Born 1013-Died 1672).
IN the works of Mrs. ANNE BRADSTREET,
wife of one and daughter of another of the ear
ly governors of Massachusetts, we have illus
trations of a genius suitable to grace a dis
tant province while the splendid creations
of Spenser and Shakspere were delighting
the metropolis. A comparison of the pro
ductions of this celebrated person with those
of Lady Juliana Berners, Elizabeth Melvill,
the Countess of Pembroke, and her other pred
ecessors or contemporaries, will convince the
judicious critic that she was superior to any
poet of her sex who wrote in the English
language before the close of the seventeenth
century.
She was born in 1613, while her father,
Thomas Dudley — who had been educated in
the family of the Earl of Northampton, and
had served creditably with the army in Flan
ders — was steward to the Earl of Lincoln, in
which situation he remained with a brief in
terruption from twelve to sixteen years, and
in which he appears to have been succeeded
by Mr. Simon Bradstreet, of Emanuel Col
lege—subsequently for a short time steward
to the Countess of Warwick — who in 1629
married the future poetess, then about six
teen years of age, and in the following year
came with the Dudley family and other non
conformists to New England.
It does not appear that Mrs. Bradstreet
had written anything, which has been print
ed, before her arrival in America. Here was
completed her education, under the care of her
husband, and his friends among the learned
men who then presided over the society of
Cambridge and Boston ; and by her experi
ence and observation in this country nearly
all her poems seem to have been suggested.
The first collection of them was printed at
Boston, in 1640, under the title of "Several
Poems, compiled with great variety of Wit
and Learning, full of delight ; wherein espe
cially is contained a compleat Discourse and
Description of the Four Elements, Constitu
tions, Ages of Man, and Seasons of the Year,
together with an exact Epitome of the Three
First Monarchies, viz., the Assyrian, Persian,
and Grecian ; and the beginning of the Roman
Commonwealth to the end of their last King ;
with divers other Pleasant and Serious Po
ems : By a Gentlewoman of New England."
In 1650 this volume was reprinted in Lon
don, with the additional title of " The Tenth
Muse, lately sprung up in America ;" and in
1678 a second American edition came from
the press of John Foster, of Boston, " cor
rected by the author, and enlarged by the
addition of several other poems found among
her papers after her death."
The writer of the preface to the first edi
tion, who was probably her brother-in-law,
John Woodbridge, of Andover, says : " Had
I opportunity but to borrow some of the au
thor's wit, 'tis possible I might so trim this
curious work with sucn quaint expressions
as that the preface might bespeak thy fur
ther perusal ; but I fear 'twill be a shame for
a man that can speak so little, to be seen in
the titlepage of this woman's book, lest by
comparing the one with the other the reader
should pass his sentence that it is the gift of
the woman not only to speak most but to
speak best. I shall have therefore to com
mend that, which with any ingenious reader
will too much commend the a\ithor, unless
men turn more peevish than women and
envy the inferior sex. I doubt not but the
reader will quickly find more than I can say,
and the worst effect of his reading will be un
belief, which will make him question wheth
er it can be a woman's work, and ask, 'Is
it possible V If any do, take this as an an
swer, from him that dares avow it : It is the
work of a woman, honored and esteemed
where she lives, for her gracious demeanor,
her eminent parts, her pious conversation,
her courteous disposition, her exact dili
gence in her place, and discreet managing
of her family occasions : and more than so.
these poems are the fruit but of some few
hours, curtailed from her sleep and other re
freshments. . . . This only I shall annex : 1
fear the displeasure of no person in publish
ing these poems, but the author, without
whose knowledge and contrary to %yhoseei
A.NXE BRADSTREET.
pectation I have presun-ed to bring to pub
lic view what she resolved in such a manner
should never see the sun."
It is evident, from some lines upon it by
Mrs. Bradsireet, that Spenser's Faery Queen
wa> not unknown in Massachusetts, but the
fashionable poet of that period was Du Bar
tas,* translations of whose works, in cum-
bn .n.- quartos and folios, were read by every
person in the country pretending to taste or
pie.\ . ill. ii-h they seem to have evinced little
genm-. and still less religion. Among the
verses prefixed to Mrs. Bradsireet's volume
are some by Nathaniel Ward, of Ipswich,
the witty author of The Simple Cobbler of
Aga warn, who, puzzled by a comparison of
his heroine with the recognised model of
the age, declares that —
Mercury showed Apollo Bartas' book, •
Minerva this, and wished him well to look
And tell uprightly which did which excel :
Jle viewed and viewed, and vowed he could not tell.
But .Airs. Bradstreet herself was more mod
est, and, in the prologue to r-ne of her longer
piece:-, says —
But when my wondering eyes and envious heart
(I real Bartas' sugared lines do but read o'er,
Tool ! I do grudge the muses did not part
"J'wivt him and me their overfluent store.
A Bartas can do what a Bartas will —
But simple I, according to my skill.
The "copies of verses" which are prefixed
to these poems are curious, not only as indi-
c.aiing the position of the author and her as
sociations, but as illustrative of the taste and
culture of the time in the city which still
claims to be our literary capital. Benjamin
Wondbridge, the first graduate of Harvard
college, exclaims —
Now 1 believe Tradition, which doth call
The muses, virtues, graces, females all ;
Only they are not nine, eleven, nor three —
Our authoress proves them but one unity.
And further on, to his own sex —
In your own arts confess yourselves outdone
The moon doth totally eclipse the sun :
Mot with her sable mantle muflling him,
But her bright silver makes his -old look dim.
William de_ Salluste dn liartas the mor-f ceiehrated
F'i-'nch poet of his a-c. was Lorn n l.M-l. and died in
..r>!U>. He was the friend and n
H'-nri IV., and wrote a canticle upoi
His works were nearly nil. hy vin-ji
into Kn-lish. HIM' one of theni. •• (in!
•ii, Hebdornas "etc., pas.-ed through
lions in MX years. The translation which was p'rohahiv
)•• st kno-n in tins country is that of Sylveate :. published
in London, in a thick folio, in
ip.-inirii in arms of
his victory of Vvri.
us hands, translated
elnii Sallu-ti llartas-
nore than thirty edi-
iviiicii was probably
Sylveate :. published
The learned and pious John Norton, who
declared this "peerless gentlewoman" to be
" the mirror of her age and glory of her sex,"
said in a funeral ode that could Virgil hear
her works he would condemn his own to the
fire, and that —
Praise her who list, yet he shall be a debtor,
For art ne'er feigned, nor nature formed, a better'.
Her virtues were so great, that they do raise
A work to trouble Fame, astonish Praise ;
When, as her name doth but salute the ear,
Men think that they Perfection's abstract hear.
Her breast was a brave palace, a broad street,
Where all heroic, ample thoughts did meet;
Where Nature such a tenement had ta'en
That other souls to hers dwelt in a lane.
Beneath her feet pale Envy bites the chain,
And poisoned Malice whets her sting in vain.
Let every laurel, every myrtle bough,
Be stripped for leaves t' adorn and load her brow
Victorious wreaths, which, for they never fade,
Wise elder times for kings and poets made.
J.et not her happy memory e'er lack
Its worth in Fame's eternal almanac,
Which none shall read but straight their loss deplore
And blame their fates they were not born before.
Do not old men rejoice their dates did last,
And infants too that theirs did make such haste,
In such a welcome time to bring them forth
That they might be a witness to her worth 1
Dr. Cotton Mather in the Magnalia alludes
to her works as a "monument to her mem
ory beyond the stateliest marble ;" and John
Rogers, one of the presidents of Harvard col
lege, addressed to her one of the finest poems
written in this country before the Revolution,
in which he says: —
Your only hand those poesies did compose ; [flow ;
Your head, the source whence all those springs did
Your voice, whence change's sweetest notes arose ;
^ Your feet, that kept the dance alone, I trow ;
Then veil your bonnets, poetasters, all :
Strike lower amain, and at these humbly fall,
And deem yourselves advanced to be her pedestal
Should all with lowly congees laurels bring,
Waste Flora's magazine to find a wreath,
Or Pineus' banks, 'twere too mean offering.
Your muse a fairer garland doth bequeath
To guard your fairer front; here 'tis your name
Shall stand im marbled ; this — your little frame
Shall great Colossus be to your eternal fame.
These praises run into hyperbole, and prove,
perhaps, that their authors were more gal
hint than critical ; but we perceive from Mrs.
Bradstreet's poems that they are not desti
tute of imagination, and that she was thor
oughly instructed in the best learning of her
acre : and from the general and profound re
gret manifested on the occasion of her death,
ANNE BRADSTREET.
we may believe she was personally deserv
ing of unusual respect.
Her Husband was frequently absent from
his home, upon official duties, and several
poems which she addressed to him in these
periods have the fervor and simplicity of the
sincerest passion. In one of them she says :
If ever two were one, then surely we ;
If ever man were loved by wife, then thee ;
If ever wife were happy in a man,
Compare with me, ye women, if ye can.
In another, apostrophizing the sun :
Phoebus, make haste — the day 's too long — begone !
The silent night's the fittest time for moan.
But stay, this once — unto my suit give ear —
And tell my griefs in either hemisphere:
If in thy swift career thou canst ma-ke stay,
I crave this boon, this errand, by the way :
Commend me to the man, more loved than life :
Show him the sorrows of his widowed wife ;
And if he love, how can he there abide ]
My interest 's more than all the world beside. . . .
Tell him the countless steps that thou dost trace
That once a day thy spouse thou mayst embrace,
And when thou canst not meet by loving mouth,
Thy rays afar salute her from the south ;
But for one month, I see no day, poor soul !
Like those far situate beneath the pole,
Which day by day long wait for thy arise—
0 how they joy when thou dost light the skies !
Tell him I would say more, but can not well ;
Oppress Jd minds abruptest tales do tell.
Now part with double speed, mark what I say,
By all our loves conjure him not to stay !
In the prospect of death :
How soon, my dear, death may my steps attend,
How soon 't may be thy lot to lose thy friend,
We both are ignorant ; yet love bids me
These farewell lines to recommend to thee,
That when that knot's untied that made us one,
1 may seem thine, who in effect am none.
And if I see not half my days that's due,
What Nature would, God grant to yours and you ;
The many faults that well you know I have,
Let be interred in my oblivious grave ;
If any worth or virtue is in me,
Let that live freshly in my memory ;
And when thou feel'st no grief, as I no harms,
Yet love thy dead, who long lay in thine arms ;
And when thy loss shall be repaid, with gains,
Look to my little babes, my dear remains,
And if thou lovest thyself or lovest me,
These oh protect from stepdame's injury !
And if chance to thine eyes doth bring this verse,
With some sad sighs honor my absent hearse,
And kiss this paper, for thy love's dear sake.
Who with salt tears this last farewell doth take.
Some of her elegies are marked by similar
beauties — as this, upon a grandchild who
died in 1665: —
Farewell, dear child, my heart's too much content,
Farewell, sweet babe, the pleasure of mine eye,
Farewell, fair flower, that for a space was lent,
Then ta'en away into eternity.
Blest babe, why should I once bewail thy fate,
Or sigh, the days so soon were terminate,
Sith thou art settled in an everlasting state 1
By nature, trees do rot when they are grown,
And plums and apples thoroughly ripe do fall,
And corn and grass are in their season mown,
And time brings down what is both strong and tall.
But plants new set, to be eradicate,
And buds new blown, to have so short a date,
Is by His hand alone, that nature guides, and fate.
And some verges upon the death of a daugh
ter-in-law, in 1669, from which the follow
ing is an extract : —
And live I still, to see relations gone,
And yet survive, to sound this wailing tone t
Ah, wo is me, to write thy funeral song
Who might in reason yet have lived so long !
I saw the branches lopped, the tree now fall ;
I stood so nigh, it crushed me down withal ;
My bruised heart lies sobbing at the root,
That thou, dear son, hast lost both tree and fruit;
Thou, then on seas, sailing on foreign coast,
Wast ignorant what riches thou hadst lost,
But oh, too soon those heavy tidings fly,
To strike thee with amazing misery !
Mrs. Brads'reet died on the 16ih of Septem
ber, 1672, in the sixtieth year of her age.
Her husband afterward married a sister of
Sir George Dunning, and lived to be called
the Nestor of New England, dying at Salem
in 1697, when he was nearly a century old.
Many of Mrs. Bradstreet's descendants
have been conspicuous for their abilities.
Among them is the noble poet Dana, Avho
traces his lineage through one of the signers
of the Declaration of Independence.
FROM THE PROLOGUE TO THE FOUR
ELEMENTS.
I AM obnoxious to each carping tongue
That says my hand a needle better fits ;
A poet's pen all scorn I should thus wrong,
For such despite they cast on female wits ;
If what I do prove well, it won't advance- -
They'll say, It's stolen, or else it was by chance
But sure, the antique Greeks were far more mild ,
Else of our sex why feigned they those Nine,
And Poesy made Calliop >'s own child '
So, 'mongst the rest, they placed the arts divine.
20
ANXE BRAUSTREET.
But tliis weak knot they will full soon untie —
The (Jp'eks diil naught but play the fool and lie.
Let (J reeks l>e Greeks, and women what they are ;
Men have precedency, and still excel ;
't is but vain unjustly to wage war,
Men can do best, and women know it well;
Pre-eminence in each and all is yours,
Vet tyrant some small acknowledgment of ours.
And oh, ye high-flown quills that soar the skit's,
And ever with your prey .still catch your praise,
If e'er you deign these lowly lines your eyes,
(ii\c tiiMiic or parsley wreath: I ask no bays;
This mean and unrefined ore of mine
Will make your glistering gold but more to shine.
EXTRACT FROM CONTKMPL ATIONS.
TIxitr.it the cooling shadow of a stately elm,
Close sat I by a goodly river's side,
Where gliding streams the rocks did overwhelm ;
A lonely place, with pleasures dignified.
I, once that loved the shady woods so well,
.Vow thought the rivers did the trees excel, [dwell.
And if the sun would ever shine, there would I
While on the stealing stream I fixed mine eye,
Which to the longed-for ocean held its course,
I marked nor crooks nor rubs that there did lie,
Could hinder aught, but still augment its force.
" O happy flood," quoth I, « that holdst thy race
Till thou arrive at thy beloved place,
Nor is it rocks or shoals that can obstruct thy pace.
"Nor is't enough that thou alone may'st slide,
But hundred brooks in thy clear waves do meet:
Si; hand in hand along with thee they glide
To Thetis' house, where all embrace and greet.
Thou emblem true of what I count the best
() could I leave my rivulets to rest!
So may we press to that vast mansion ever blest.
" Ye fish which in this liquid region 'bide.
That for each season have your habitation,
Now salt, now fresh, when you think best to glide,
To unknown coasts to give a visitation,
In lakes and ponds you leave your numerous fry :
So .Nature taught, and yet you know not why—
You wat'ry folk that know not your felicity !''
Look how the wantons frisk to taste the air,
Then to the colder bottom straight they dive,
Eft soon to .Veptunc's glassy h;dl repair"
To see what trade the threat ones there do drive,
Who t'oni'jv o'er the spacious sea-irreen field.
And take their trembling prey before it yield,
Whose armor is their scales, their spreading fins
their shield.
While musinnr thus with contemplation fed.
And thousand fancies bu/./.in^ in mv brain,
rl'h«' sweet toiiLrued Philomel perch :-d o'er my head,
And chanted forth a most melodious strain,
Which rapt me so with wonder and delight,
I judged my hearing better than my sight,
And wished me wings with her a while to lake
my flight.
" 0 merry bird," said I, " that fears no snares ;
That neither toils nor hoards up in thy barn ;
Feels no sad thoughts, nor 'cruciating cares
To gain more good, or shun what might thee harm :
Thy clothes ne'er wear, thy meat is everywhere,
Thy bed a bough, thy drink the water clear, [fear
Reminds not what is past, nor what's to come dost
" The dawning morn with songs thou dost prevent*
Sets hundred notes unto thy feathered crew ;
So each one tunes his pretty instrument,
And warbling out the old, begins anew,
And thus they pass their youth in summer season,
Then follow thee into a better region,
Where winter's never felt by that sweet airy legion."
Man's at the best a creature frail and vain,
In knowledge ignorant, in strength but weak ;
Subject to sorrows, losses, sickness, pain,
Each storm his state, his mind, his body break :
From some of these he never finds cessation,
But day or night, within, without, vexation,
Troubles from foes, from friends, from dearest,
near'st relations.
And yet this sinful creature, frail and vain,
This lump of wretchedness, of sin and sorrow,
This weather-beaten vessel racked with pain,
Joys not in hope of an eternal morrow ;
Nor all his losses, crosses, and vexation,
In weight, in frequency, and long duration,
Can make him deeply groan for that divine trans
lation.
The mariner that on smooth waves doth glide,
Sin ITS merrily, and steers his bark with ease,
As if he had command of wind and tide,
And were become great master of the seas;
But suddenly a storm spoils all the sport,
And makes him long for a more quiet port,
Which 'gainst all adverse winds may serve for fort.
So he that saileth in this world of pleasure,
^ Feeding on sweets, that never bit of the sour,
That's full of friends, of honor, and of treasure
Fond fool ! he takes this earth e'en for heaven's
bower.
But sad alHiction comes, and makes him see
Here's neither honor, wealth, nor safety:
Only above is found all with security.
O Time, the fatal wrack of mortal things,
That draws Oblivion's curtains over kings
TJieir sumptuous monuments men know them not,
Their names without a record are forgot, [dust—
Their parts, their ports, their pomps, all laid i' the
Nor wit, nor -,ro!d, nor l)iiildinirs, 'scape Time's rust
But be whose name is graved in the white stone,
Shall last and shine when all. of these are gone!
That is, anticipate.
MERCY WARREN.
(Born 1728 -Died 1815).
THIS woman, once so well known as a
poet, and whose historical writings are still
consulted as among the most valuable au
thorities relating to our revolutionary age,
was a sister of the celebrated James Otis and
the wife of James Warren, for many years
honorably conspicuous in public affairs. She
was born in Barnstable, of a family which
had been nearly a century in the Plymouth
colony, on the 25th of September, 1728. Her
youth was passed in retirement, but in hab
its and duties suitable for the eldest daugh
ter of a gentleman of the first rank in the co
lonial society. Her education was directed
first by the minister of the parish, and after
ward by her brother James, who graduated
at Harvard in 1743, and was a thoroughly
accomplished scholar. When about twenty-
six years of age she was married to Mr. War
ren," then a merchant at Plymouth, and it was
while residing with him and her children,
in after years, near that town, at a place to
which she gave the name of Clifford, that
she wrote the greater part of her dramatic
and miscellaneous poems.
The popular excitement which preceded
the separation from England, and the rela
tions sustained by her brother and her hus
band to the great parties by which the coun
try was divided, had a quick and powerful
influence upon her ardent and sympathetic
spirit, and perhaps nothing would give us a
more just impression of the feelings of the
time than her eloquent and terse correspon
dence with the Adamses, with Jefferson,
Dickinson, Gerry, Knox, and other leading
characters, upon the aspects and prospects
of affairs. Her intercourse with the remark
able women who seconded so earnestly the
movements of the fathers of the republic,
was more intimate, and probably would ad
mit us yet further into the secrets and pas
sions of the youthful heart of the nation.
Her intelligence and patriotism are recog
nised by Mrs. Adams, who, in a letter to
her written in 1773, remarks: "You are so
sincere a lover of your country, and so hearty
a mourner in all her misfo:tu:ies, that it will
greatly aggravate your anxiety to hear how
much she is now oppressed and insulted.
To you, who have so thoroughly looked
through the deeds of men, and developed the
dark designs of a * Rapatio' soul, no action,
however base or sordid, no measure, how
ever cruel and villanous, will be a matter
of surprise." By " Rapatio" is meant Gov
ernor Hutchinson, who is thus designated in
The Group, a satirical drama, in two acts,
which Mrs. Warren had published, and to
which much influence is ascribed in contem
porary letters. In the first scene of the sec
ond act, in describing the royal governor,
she says:
But mark the traitor ! his high crime glossed o'er
Conceals the tender feelings of the man,
The social ties that bind the human heart :
He strikes a bargain with his country's foes,
And joins to wrap America in flames,
Yet, with feigned pity and satanic grin,
As if more deep to fix the keen insult,
Or make his life a farce still more complete,
He sends a groan across the broad Atlantic,
And with a phiz of crococlilean stamp,
Can weep and writhe, still hoping to deceive.
He cries, The gathering clouds hang thick about her,
But laughs within — then sobs, Alas, my country !
And in another place, alluding to the de
struction of the tea in Boston harbor :
India's poisonous weed,
Long since a sacrifice to Thetis, made
A rich" resale. Now all the watery dames
May snuff souchong, and sip, in flowing bowls,
The higher-flavored choice hysonian stream.
And leave their nectar to old Homer's gods.
There is certainly very little poetry in these
extracts, or in the piece from which they are
taken ; but as reflexions of the common feel
ing her satires received the best applause of
the day.
Mrs. Warren's residence was changed du
ring the Revolution to Milton, Watertown,
and other places ; Washington, Lee, Gates,
and D'Estaing, were among her occasional
guests ; and many of the leading statesmen
of New England by her fireside formed plans
of the execution of which she subsequently
became the historian. Her tragedies were
written for amusement, in the solitary hours
MERCY WARREN.
in which her friends wen- sihnuid, and the)
:ire :is deeply imbued wilh tin- general spiri
as if their characters were acting in thedaili
i-xpi-rieiice of the country. They have Hull
drainaiie or poetic merit, but m-my passages
are smoothly and some vigorously written
as the fallowing, from The Sack of Rome:
S f S P I C I O N .
I tli ink some latent mischief lies concealed
ISeneath the vi/ard of a fair pretence;
My In-art ill brooked the errand of the day,
Yet I obeyed — though a strange horror seized
My Bloomy mind, and shook my frame
As if the moment murdered all my joys,
n KM on SK.
The bird of death that nightly pecks the roof,
Or shrieks beside the caverns of the dead ;
Or paler spectres that infest the tombs
Of guilt and darkness, horror or despair,
Are far more welcome to a wretch like me
Than yon bight rays that deck the opening morn.
FORTUNE.
The wheel of fortune, rapid in its flight,
La-* not for man, when on its swift routine;
Nor does the goddess ponder unresolved:
She wafts at once and on her lofty car
Lifts up her puppet— mounts him to the skies,
Or from the pinnacle hurls headlong down
The steep abyss of disappointed hope.
AUDKLIA.
She was, for innocence and truth,
For elegance, true dignity, and grace,
The fairest sample of that ancient worth
Th' illustrious matrons boasted to the world
When Kome was famed for every glorious deed.
m.CLIXK OF PUBLIC VIUTUK.
That dignity the gods themselves inspired,
When Home, inflamed with patriotic zeal,
Louir taught the world to tremble and admire,
Lies (hint and languid in the wane of fame,
And must expire in Luxury's lewd lap
It not supported by some vigorous arm.
Or these, from The Ladies of Castile:
CITIl WAII.
'M.mirst. all the ills that hover o'er mankind,
Unfeigned, or fabled in the poet's pajre.
The blackest scrawl the sister furies hold,
For red-e\ed \Vralh or .Malice to (ill up,
•Is incomplete to sum up human wo,
Till Civil Discord, still a darker fiend.
Stalks forth unmasked from his infernal den,
With mad Alecto'« torch in his right hand. '
TIIK ecu HAM: or VIIITIK.
^ A soul, inspired by freedom's Denial warmth,
hxpands, grows firm, and by resistance, strong;
The most successful prince that offers life,
•\nd 1'iils me live upon ignoble terms,
Shall learn from me that virtue seldom fears.
Death kindly opes a tnmisand friendly gates,
tad Freedom waits to guard her votaries through
Appended to her tragedies are several
miscellaneous poems, generally in a flowing
verse, but frequently marked by bad taste,
and rarely evincing any real poetical power
or feeling. The following lines are from the
beginning of an epistle to a young gentleman
educated in Europe : —
SUPKHSTIT1OX,
When ancient Britons piped the rustic lays,
And tuned to Woden notes of vocal praise,
The dismal dirges caught the listening throng
And ruder gestures joined the antique song.
Then the gray druid's grave, majestic air,
The frantic priestess, with dishevelled hair
And flaming torch, spoke Superstition's reign :
While elfin damsels dancing o'er the plain,
Allured the vulgar by the mystic scene,
To keep long vigils on the sacred green.
In A Political Revery, written before the
commencement of the war, she gives a view
of the future glory of America, and the pun
ishment of her oppressors. After a sketch
of the first history of the country, she says :
Here a bright form, with soft majestic grace,
Beckoned me on through vast unmeasured space
Beside the margin of the vast profound,
Wild echoes played and cataracts did bound ;
Beyond the heights of nature's wide expanse,
\V here moved superb the planetary dance.
Light burst on light, and suns o'er suns displayed
The system perfect Nature's God had laid.
And here the fate of nations is revealed to
her. In The Squabble of the Sea-Nymphs
is celebrated the destruction of tea in 1774
The following are the concluding lines:
The virtuous daughters of the neighb'ring mead
In graceful smiles approved the glorious deed
(And though the syrens left their coral beds,
Just o'er the surface lifted up their heads,
And sung soft paeans to the brave and fair,
Till almost caught in the delusive snare
To sink securely in a golden dream,
And taste the sweet, inebriating stream);
J'hey saw delighted from the inland rocks,
> er the broad deep poured out Pandora's box •
1 hey jomed, and fair Salacia's triumph sun---
VV ild echo o'er the bounding ocean run" • °
Hie sea-nymphs heard, and all the sportive tram
n shaggy tressefl danced around the main
'rom southern lakes down to the northern rills
And spread confusion round N hius.
Tin- 1 incs to the Hon. John Winthrop, who
on the determination in 1774 to suspend all
trade with England except for the real "ne-
cessaries of life," requested a list of articles
|l ladies might comprise under that head
are in the author's happiest vein of satire •—
MERCY WARREN.
THIXGS NECESSARY TO THE LIFE OF A WOXAX.
An inventory clear
Of all she needs, Lamira offers here ;
Nor does she fear a rigid Cato's frown,
When she lays by the rich embroidered gown,
And modestly compounds for just enough — •
Perhaps some dozens of mere flighty stuff:
With lawns and lustrings, blond, and mecklin lace.3,
Fringes and jewels, fans and tweezer-cases ;
Gay cloaks and hats, of every shape and size,
Scarfs, cardinals, and ribands, of all dyes ;
With ruffles stamped, and aprons of tambour,
Tippets and handkerchiefs at least threescore ;
With finest muslins that fair India boasts,
And the choice herbage from Chinesan coasts.
Add feathers, furs, rich satins, and ducapes,
And head-dresses in pyramidial shapes ;
Sideboards of plate, and porcelain profuse,
With fifty dittoes that the ladies use ;
If my poor, treach'rous memory has missed,
Ingenious T 1 shall complete the list.
So weak Lamira, and her wants so few,
Who can refuse 1 — they 're but the sex's due.
Yet Clara quits the more dressed negligee,
And substitutes the careless Polanee,
Until some fair one from Britannia's court
Some jaunty dress or newer taste import ;
This sweet temptation could not be withstood,
Though for the purchase's paid her father's blood ;
Though earthquakes rattle, or volcanoes roar,
Indulge this trifle — and she asks no more :
Can the stern patriot Clara's suit deny 1
'Tis Beauty asks, and Reason must comply.
John Adams was perhaps a better oiator
than critic. He writes to Mrs. Warren, up
on the publication of her poems : " However
foolishly some European writers may have
sported with American reputation for genius,
literature, and science, I know not where
they will find a female poet of their own to
prefer to the ingenious author of these com
positions."
In the dedication of her poems to Wash
ington, she says : " Feeling much for the
distresses of America in the dark days of her
affliction, a faithful record has been kept of
the most material transactions, through a
period that has engaged the attention both
of the philosopher and the politician ; and,
if life is spared, a just trait of the most dis
tinguished characters, either for valor, vir-
*ue, or patriotism, for perfidy, intrigue, in
consistency, or ingratitude, shall be faithful
ly transmitted to posterity." The work thus
announced was published in three octavo vol
umes in 1805, under the title of " The His
tory of the Rise, Progress, and Termination
of the American Revolution, interspersed
with Biographical, Political, and Moral Ob
servations." It will always be consulted as
one of the most interesting original authori
ties upon fhe revolution. It is written with
care, an;l in a spirit of independence which
is illustrated by her notice of the character
of her friend Mr. Adarns, which was so un
favorable as to cause a temporary interrup
tion of the relations between the two fami
lies ; but Mrs. Adams in this case, as in that
of her husband's quairel with Mr. Jefferson,
finally brought about a reconciliation, which
was sealed with a ring which she sent to the
historian, containing her own and her hus
band's hair.
Mrs. Warren continued to the close of her
life to feel a lively interest in affairs, and she
was intelligent and honest enough to be al
ways a partisan. Though sometimes wrong,
as she clearly was in her active opposition
to the federal constitution, it was delightful
to see even in a woman a contempt for that
neutrality in regard to public measures which
under a democratic government is invariably
the sign of a feeble understanding or of time
serving wickedness. The duke de Roche-
foucault, in his entertaining Travels in the
United States, speaks of her extensive and
varied reading, and declares that at seventy
she had "lost neither the activity of her
mind nor the graces of her person." In her
old age she was blind, but she bore the mis
fortune with cheerfulness, and continued her
intercourse with society. She died in her
eighty-seventh year, on the 19th of October,
1814.
There is a portrait of Mrs. Warren, by
Copley, in the possession of her family, and
an excellent life of her is contained in Mrs
Ellens recently published "Women of the
Revolution."
ELIZABETH GRAEME FERGUSON.
(Born 1739-Died 1801).
THE most polite and elegant society m this
country before the Revolution was probably
that of Philadelphia, with its connexions in
the southeastern part of the colony, and in
Delaware and New Jersey. There were " sol
id men" in Boston, there was much real re
spectability in New York, and good families
were scattered through New England and
along the Old Dominion and the Carolinas :
but in Philadelphia the distinction of classes
was more marked, and the coteries of fash
ion larger and more exclusive, than else
where in America. Of the first rank here
were the Grames, of Grame Park, who by
blood, fortune, abilities, and character, were
alike entitled to consideration among the pro
vincial gentry. Dr. Thomas Grame was a
native of Scotland. He was a physician of
large acquirements, and the respectability of
his origin, his popular manners, and success
in the practice of his profession, made him
an eligible match for the daughter of Sir
William Keith; and his alliance with the
governor led to his appointment to the col-
lectorship of the customs, which he held for
many years.
ELIZABETH GRJEME, the youngest of the
four children of Thomas Grame and Anne
Keith, was born in Philadelphia in 1739.
At an early age she evinced uncommon abil
ities, and the chief care of her mother was
to educate her mind and heart so that she
should illustrate by her intelligence and vir
tue th.- highest grade of female character.
Much of her youth was passed at Grceme
Park, a beautiful country residence, twenty
miles from the city, where she was frequent
ly visited by her friends, and where her nat
urally feeble constitution was so improved,
that u-hen she appeared in society, at six
teen, the charms of her person were scarcely
less distinguished than the u-it and learning
which made her a particular star in the me^
tropolitan society. In her seventeenth year
she \vas addressed by a young gentleman of
tne city, and engaged to be married to him
upon his return from London, whither he
soon afcer proceeded to complete his educa-
[ tion in the law. This contract for some rea-
i son was never fulfilled. To divert ner attea-
| tion from the disappointment. Miss Grame
| undertook the translation of Fenelon's Te-
j lemachus mtc English heroic verse ; and she
completed the work, in three years. In
an introduction, written in 1769, she ob
serves that " she is sensible the translation
has little merit," but that " it is sufficient
for her that it amused her in a period that
would have been pensive and solitary with
out a pursuit."
It appears, however, that her health rap
idly declined ; and it was determined by her
father,* after conferences upon the subject
with other physicians, that she should seek
its restoration by a sea-voyage and a tempo
rary residence in England. She sailed for
London under the care of the Rev. Dr. Rich
ard Peters, a gentleman of polished manners
and elevated character, whose connexions
enabled him to secure her introduction to the
most eminent persons and to the first circles
in the kingdom. She was particularly no
ticed by George III. ; she became acquainted
with Laurence Sterne and other celebrated
wits and men of letters ; and she formed an
intimacy with the well-known Dr. Fother-
gill, which was maintained by correspon
dence until his death. She remained in
England a year, during which period she
kept a journal, in which she described, with
happy vivacity, manners and persons, and the
contrasts between English and colonial so
ciety.
After her return to Philadelphia she occu
pied the place of her mother in her father's
family. Every Saturday evening for several
years was set apart for the reception of com
pany, and on these occasions her pleasino-
manners and brilliant conversation were
«':»'ises ,.f never-ending admiration to the in-
* It is ivlatcd that her mother ;iss,-nted to Mf^Trw^Tr
from hii: LlShtf°0t *Piehcd 10r *•*« ™so"s ?oa<£;
24
ELIZABETH GR.EME FERGUSON.
telligent society of the city and to the stran
gers whose positions or abilities secured for
them a presentation at Dr. Graeme's house.
At one of these parties she became acquaint
ed with Mr. Hugh Henry Ferguson, a young
gentleman who had recently arrived in the
country from Scotland ; and though he was
ten years younger, her personal attractions
and the congeniality of their tastes soon led
to their marriage. Her father died in a few
weeks after, and they retired to Gramme Park ;
but the approach of the Revolution, and the
adhesion of Mr. Ferguson to the British par
ty, in 1775, induced a speedy and perpetual
separation.
Mrs. Ferguson's position made her an ob
ject of respectful consideration to individuals
of both parties during the war. Her domes
tic relations were principally with the ene
my, but she was by birth a Pennsylvanian,
and her old friends, some of whom were
leading patriots, treated her wiih kindness.
She appears in the public history of the time
as the bearer of an extraordinary letter from
the celebrated Dr. Duche to General Wash
ington, and as the agent by whom Governor
Johnstone made those overtures to General
Joseph Reed which were answered by the
famous declaration — "My influence is but
small, but were it as great as Governor John-
stone would insinuate, the king of Great Brit
ain has nothing in his gift that would tempt
me."*
The remainder of Mrs. Ferguson's life was
passed chiefly at Graeme Park, in the pur
suits of literature, in domestic avocations,
and in offices of friendship. Her income was
greatly reduced, but her charities were never
interrupted, nor was she ever known to mur
mur at the changed and comparatively deso
late condition of her later years. She cher
ished an unhesitating faith in the Christian
religion, and was familiar with the masters
of divinity. It is related that she transcribed
the whole Bible, to impress its contents more
deeply in her memory.
More than twenty years after the comple-
* Sparks'* Washington, v. 95, 476 ; William B. Reed's
Life of President Reed, i., 381 ; American Remembrancer,
tion of her translation oi Telemachus, she
rewrote the four volumes, adding occasional
notes and observations. In some memoranda
dated at Graeme Park, May 20, 1788, she
says of the copy which received her last cor
rections: "This is meant for a particular
friend, but if I live I intend to give a more
correct version, and perhaps, if I meet with
encouragement, shall have it printed. I am
now quite undetermined as to all my plans
in life. I have little reason to think I am
to remain here long ; but at present I am at
this place with only my old and fai:hful friend
Eliza Stedman." "She lived until the 23d of
February, 1801, but it does not appear that
she ever again revised the work, and it has
not yet been printed.
She endeavored to make the translation as
literal as the poetical form and the genius of
our language would permit ; it is, however,
somewhat diffuse, the twenty-four books ma
king twenty-nine thousand and six hundred
lines. I have read Mrs. Ferguson's manu
script (which has been deposited by her heirs
in the library of the Philadelphia Libraiy
Company), and have compared parts of it
with the original and with other translations.
She had command of a fine poetical diction,
and all the learning necessary for the just
apprehension and successful illustration of
her author ; and it appears to me that Fene-
lon has not been presented in a more correct
or pleasing English dress.
Some of the minor poems, and a consider
able number of the letters and other composi
tions of Mrs. Ferguson, have been published,
and they all evince a delicate and vigorous
understanding, and an honorable character.
A talent for versification was at that pe
riod not uncommon among the educated wo
men of the country, but it was principally
exercised in the expression of private feeling
or for the amusement of particular circles.
Some verses by Mrs. Stockton, welcoming
Washington to New Jersey, have been pre
served by Marshall, and in the monthly mag
azines of Philadelphia, New York, and Bos
ton, appeared many anonymous poems, evi
dently by female authors, which were emi
nently creditable to their literary abilities.
ELIZABETH GR^ME FERGUSON.
INVOCATION TO WISDOM.
PREFIXED TO THK AUTHOR'S TRAX-S NATION OF THE
ADVENTURES OF TELE.MACHUS.
GRAVE WISDOM, guardian of the modest youth,
Thou soul of knowledge and thou source of truth,
Inspire my muse, and animate her lays,
That she harmonious may chant thy praiso
O could a spark of that celestial fire,
Which did thy favored Ft'mMon inspire,
Light on the periods of my fettered theme,
And dart one radiant, one illumined heam,
Then struggling Passion might its portrait view.
And learn from thence its tumults to subdue.
This was the pious prelate's great design :
As rays converged to one bright point combine,
So do the fable and the tale unite
The path of Truth by Fancy's torch to light ;
Each to one noble, generous aim aspires,
And the rich galaxy at once conspires
To catch the fluttering mind and fix the sense
The end can justify the fine pretence,
For youthful spirits abstract reasonings shun,
And from grave precept void of life they run.
Though heathen gods are introduced to si gut,
'T is one Great Being radiates every light :
Seen through the medium of ^ lesser ^uide,
From one pure fount is each small rill supplied ;
Then, rigid Christian, be not too severe,
Nor think groat Cambray in an error here.
In parable the holy Jesus taught —
Unwound the clue with mystic knowledge fraught.
He knew the frailties of man's earthly lot,
That truths important were too soon forgot;
He screened his purpose in the pleasing tale,
Then tore aside the heavenly-woven veil,
Showed his design — the perfect, sacred plan — -
And raised to angel what he found but man ;
By nice gradation in this scale divine
The glorious meaning did illustrious shine.
Like his mvat Master, pious Cambray taught,
And all the good of all mankind he sought:
Through his Telemachus he points to view
What youth should fly from and what youth pursue.
He makes pure. Wisdom leave the realms above
To screen a mortal from bewitching love,
To lead him through the thorny ways below,
And all those arts of false refinement show
Which end in fleeting joy and lasting wo ;
lie paints uay Venus in tumultuous rage,
Yet shows her baflled by the guardian sage,
Who draws his pupil from Idalian groves,
From blooming Cyprus and from melting loves.
Passion and Wisdom hold perpetual strife
Through the strange mazes of man's chequered life
Of all the evils our trail nature knows,
The most acute from Love's emotions flows.
The utmost ellorts of the brave are seen,
To ehe-k the transports of the Paphian queen;
Ylinerva >;i\es an energy of soul
Which does the tide of Passion's rage control,
Nor damps that fire which generous youth should
But only tempers the hi-jh-finished steel: [feel,
For metal softened, polished, and refined,
Is like th' opening of the ductile mind,
Moulded by flame, made pliant to the hand,
Turned in the furnace to each just command :
This fire is disappointment, grief, and pain,
Which, if the soul with fortitude sustain,
The furnace of affliction makes more bright;
Yet higher burnished in Jehovah's sight,
And it at last shall joyfully survey
The tangled path to where perfection lay,
And bless the briers of life's thorny road
That led to peace, to happiness, and God !
THE PROCESSION OF CALYPSO.
FKO.M THE FIRST BOOK OF TELEMACHI79
SHE moved along
Environed by a beauteous female throng.
As some tall oak, the wonder of the wood,
That long the glory of the grove has stood,
Raises its head superb above the rest,
Of the green forest stands the pride confest,
So does Calypso tower in state supreme,
And darts around her an illumined beam.
The royal youth doth her soft charms admire,
And the rich lustre of her gay attire.
Her purple robes hung negligent behind,
Her hair in careless ringlets met the wind,
Her sparkling eyes shone with a vivid fire,
Yet showed no unsubdued, impure desire.
With modest silence the young prince pursued
At awful distance, cautious to intrude ;
With downcast eyes the reverend sage came last :
Thus the procession through the green grove past,
At length they reached the rural goddess' grot,
And as they entered the delightful spot,
Telemachus was much amazed to find
How Nature's beauty could allure the mind.
An elegant simplicity here reigned,
Which all the rules of studied art disdained :
No massy gold, no polished silver, glowed,
No stone that life in all its passions showed,
No lively tints spread vigor o'er a face
And spoke the picture's animating grace ;
No Doric pillars, no Corinthian style,
Rose in the turrets of a lofty pile.
Scooped from a rock the concave grotto lay,
Where Nature's touches thousand freaks display ;
There shells and pebbles the rough sides adorned
That ruid method and dull order scorned;
A vine luxuriant round its tendrils flung;
Beneath its foliage ladoned branches hung.
This vernal tapestry careless seemed to hide
The craggy roughness of its rocky side;
The softest /ephyrs made meridian suns
Cool as when JSol his morning progress runs;
Meandering fountains stole along the green.
And amaranths adorned the sprightly scene;
The purple violet shed a richness round,
And strewed its beauties on the chequered ground ,
The flowery rha plots wreath around the lake,
And in small basins mimic baths they make;
The (lowers that spring and glowing summer yield,
In gay profusion ornament the field.
Not very distant from the grotto stood
A tufted grove of fragrant vernal wood ;
ELIZABETH GR^ME FERGUSON.
2s.
The tempting fruit shone rich like burnished gold,
A dazzling lustre charming to hchold :
The blossoms white as pure untrodden snow,
Their edges shining with the scarlet's glow ;
They bloom perpetual, and perpetual bear,
And waft their incense to the yielding air.
So close their branches, and so near entwined,
They scarcely trembled to the active wind ;
No piercing sunbeams could their shades annoy,
No busy eye their sacred peace destroy ;
No sounds were heard but sprightly birds that sing,
And the fleet skylark mounting early wing;
A tumbling cascade, in which broken falls
Gushed down in torrents from the rocks' sharp walls,
But softly gliding ere it met the green,
Smooth as a mirror, painted back the scene.
Not on the mountain's top the grot was placed,
Nor yet too lowly at its feet debased ;
From, all extremes the charming cave was free,
At a small distance from the briny sea,
Where oft you viewed it, softened, calm, and clear,
Like the lulled bosom when no danger's near;
Sometimes enraged, its angry waves were found
Dashing the rocks and bursting every bound.
Your eyes you turn, and from the other side
You see a river roll its ample tide.
There scattered islands rose to charm the sight,
And by the change of novelty delight ;
Lindens fall, blooming, ladencd flowers sustain,
And raise their heads in lofty, high disdain ;
In wanton circles the smooth fountains run,
And gayly glistered in the midday sun ;
In rapid motion some their streams unfurled,
While others gently with ihe zephyrs curled —
By various windings met their former track,
And slowly murmuring, crept all lazy back.
Then in a distant view in groups were seen
Blue, misty mounts, and hills of doubtful green ;
Their lofty summits lost above the skies,
And like the clouds deluded wandering eyes,
As pleasing fancy changed its different mode
And whim and caprice did each object robe.
The neighboring mountains were more highly
graced :
There liberal Nature clustering vines had placed ;
In noble branches the grand bunches hung,
And purple raisins burst beneath the sun ;
The foliage sought their lovely charge to hide,
Yet the rich grapes shone through in gorgeous pride.
Then low beneath, mixed with the golden grain,
The fig and olive overspread the plain ;
Its tempting fruit the pomegranate displayed,
And globes of gold burst through the vernal shade :
The wkole retreat was a delightful grove,
A soft recess for friendship's sweets or love.
APOLLO WITH THE FLOCKS OF KING
ADMETUS.
FROM THE SAME.
BENEATH the shady elms, where fountains played,
The listening shepherds here his rest invade ;
Th' informing song new polished every soul,
But be ii^a^i , ir passions in a soft control. . . .
Swiftly the music and the theme would change
To vivid meads where sparkling fountains range,
Whose glittering waters the gay plains adorn,
And all the rules of art-drawn channels scorn ;
Winding they sport : the meadows seem to smile,
Their verdure heightened, and enriched their soil,
Hence the enraptured swains began to know
That joys serene from moral pleasures flow ;
The happy rustic pitied' now the king,
That could not, like the cheerful shepherd, sing ;
Their lowly roofs began the great to draw
To view the cottage humbly thatched with straw
Courtiers too oft are strangers to delight :
They rise unhappy from the restless night ;
But here the graces sweetly were arrayed,
Here lovely females every charm displayed —
Soft Innocence and ever-blooming Health,
That cheerful triumph o'er the slaves of wealth ;
No torturing envy here the peace invades
Of the mild shepherd in the greenwood shades ;
Each day superior shone with new delight,
And gentle slumbers crowned the sportive wight ,
The fluttering birds put forth their liveliest notes,
And stretched to music their expanded throats ;
The fragrant zephyrs undulate the trees,
And fan to music the enamored breeze ;
The rills pellucid murmured to the sound,
And floating harmony rolled all around ;
The muses band, the sacred virgin train,
Inspired the numbers of the tuneful swain :
But not supine they dwell in idle joys;
An active vigor, too, their limbs employs :
To run, to wrestle, to obtain the prize,
And chase the stag as he o'er mountains flies,
Was oft the business of a vacant day,
As through the green grove they betook their way
The gods looked down from great Olympus' height,
And almost envied man's supreme delight.
THE INVASION OF LOVE.
FROM THE SEVENTH BOOK OF TELEMACHUS.
CALYPSO dwelt on Cupid's blooming face,
And clasped him to her in a fond embrace ;
Though goddess born, she feels love's soft alarms
As c'ose she strains him in her circling arms
The thoughtless nymphs all felt the subtle flame,
But for the strange sensation knew no name,
Yet innate modesty and latent fear
Whispered some power of wondrous force was near.
In si ence they the newborn blaze conceded,
And, b'ushing, dreaded it mi?ht be revea'ed ,
The spreading fire a latent heat imparts
And flings its influence o'er their tender hearts. ^
The princely youth, most careless, too, surveyed
The jocund sweetness which in Cupid played,
Saw all his little freaks with fond surprise,
His thou^ht'ess frolics, and his laughing eyes.
With pleasing transport his fine features trace,!,
And on his knees the little urchin placed,
Views a1! the changes in his boyish charm",
Nor feels suspicion of impending harms.
ANNE ELIZA BLEECKER.
MRS. ANNE ELIZA BLEECKER, a daughter
of Brandt Schuyler, of New York, was born
in that city in 1752, and when seventeen
years of age was married to John J. Bleecker
of New Rochelle. After residing about two
years in Poughkeepsie, Mr. Bleecker removed
to Tomhanick, a secluded little village eigh
teen miles from Albany, where five years
were passed in uninterrupted happiness. —
Mrs. Bleecker's mother, and her half-sister,
Miss Ten Eyck, passed much of the time with
her, and her husband saw the fruition of his
hopes in the success of plans which had drawn
him from the more populous parts of the
colony. It w^as in this period that Mrs.
Bleecker wrote most of her poems which
have been preserved. Before her marriage,
her playful or serious verses had amused or
charmed the circle in which she moved —
o'ie of the most intelligent and accomplished
then in America — and she now found a sol
ace for the absence of society in the indul
gence of a taste for literature. The follow
ing extract from one of her poems not only
illustrates her style, but gives us a glimpse
• if her situation :
From yon grove the woodcock rises,
Mark her progress by her notes ;
Hi.^li in air her wings she poises,
Then like lightning down she shoots.
INow the whip-poor-will beginning/
Clamorous on a pointed rail,
Drowns the more melodious singing
Of the cat-bird, thrush, and quail.
Cast, your eyes beyond this meadow,
Painted by a hand divine,
And observe the ample shadow
Of that solemn ridge of pine.
Here a trickling rill depending,
Glitters through the artless bower;
And the silver dew descending,
Doubly radiates every flower.
While I speak, the sun is vanished,
All the gilded clouds are lied,
Ah.sie from the groves is banished,
i\ ox ions vapors round us spread.
Knnil toil is now suspended.
Sleep inv;i,l,.s the peasant's eyes,
Each diurnal task is ended,
Wlulo soft Luna climbs the skies.
Some lines addressed to Mr. Bleecker while
on a voyage down the Hudson, suggest the
(Born 1752-Died 1783).
changes of three quarters of a century in the
„ ~j ,_„ — j __
travel and cuhure a'ong the most beautiful
of rivers. She says:
Methinks I see the broad, majestic sheet
Swell to the wind ; the flying shores retreat:
I see the banks, with varied foliage gay,
Inhale the misty sun's reluctant ray ;
The lofty groves, stripped of their verdure, rise
To the inclemencc of autumnal skies. [wooda
Rough mountains now appear, while pendant
Hang o'er the gloomy steep and shade the floods ;
Slow moves the vessel, while each distant sound
The caverned echoes doubly loud rebound.
It was a custom for the lazy sloops occasion
ally to rest by the hunting-grounds or in the
highlands, but she implores her husband not
to tempt
Fate, on those stupendous rocks
Where never shepherd led his timid flocks,
and dreams that instead of the musket-shot,
she can hear —
The melting flute's melodious sound,
Which dying zephyrs waft alternate round ;
While rocks, in notes responsive, soft complain,
And think Amphion strikes his lyre again.
Ah ! 'tis my Bleecker breathes our mutual loves,
And sends the trembling airs through vocal groves.
The approach of the British army under Gen
eral Burgoyne, in 1777, was the first event
to disturb this repose. Mr. Bleecker left
Tomhanick to make arrangements for the re
moval of his family to Albany ; but while he
was gone, hearing that the enemy was but
two miles distant, she hastily started for the
city, bearing her youngest child in her arms,
and leading the other, who was but four years
of age, by the hand. A single domestic ac
companied her, and they rested at night in
a garret, after a dreary and most exhausting
walk through the wilderness. The next
morning they met Mr. Bleecker coming from
Albany, and returned with him to the city.
The youngest of the children died a few days
after, and within a month Mrs. Bleecker's
mother expired in her arms, at Redhook.
The death of her child is commemorated in
the following lines, which evince genuine
feeling, and are in a very natural style:—
WR1TTKX OX THE IIKTIIKAT FIIOX BURUOYXE.
Was it for this, with thee, a pleasing load,
_ sadly wandered through the hostile wood .
When I thought Fortune's spite could do no more,
ANNE ELIZA BLEECKER.
To see thee perish on a foreign shore 1
Oh my loved babe ! my treasures left behind
Ne'er sunk a cloud of grief upon my mind;
Rich in my children, on my arms I bore
My living treasures from the scalper's power:
When I sat down to rest, beneath some shade,
On the soft grass how innocent she played,
While her sweet sister from the fragrant wild
Collects the flowers lo please my precious child,
Unconscious of her danger, laughing roves,
Nor dreads the painted savage in the groves !
Soon as -the spires of Albany appeared,
With fallacies my rising grief I cheered :
" Resign^' I bear," said I, '< Heaven's just reproof,
Content to dwell beneath a stranger's roof-
Content my babes should eat dependent bread,
Or by the labor of my hands be fed.
What though my houses, lands, and goods, are gone,
My babes remain — these I can call my own !"
But soon my loved Abella hung her head —
From her soft cheek the bright carnation fled ;
Her smooth, transparent skin too plainly showed
How fierce through every vein tne fever glowed.
— In bitter anguish o'er her limbs I hung,
I wept and sighed, but sorrow chained my tongue ;
At length her languid eyes closed from the day,
The idol of my soul was torn away ;
Her spirit fled and left me ghastly clay !
Then — then my soul rejected all relief,
Comfort I wished not, for I loved my grief:
" Hear, my Abella," cried I, " hear me mourn !
For one short moment, oh, my child ! return ;
Let my complaint detain thee from the skies,
Though troops of angels urge thee on to rise"....
My friends press round me with officious care,
Bid me suppress my sighs, nor drop a tear;
Of resignation talked — passions subdued —
Of souls serene, and Christian fortitude —
Bade me be calm, nor murmur at my loss,
But unrepining bear each heavy cross.
" Go !" cried I, raging, " stoic bosoms, go !
Whose hearts vibrate not to the sound of wo ;
Go from the sweet society of men,
Seek some unfeeling tiger's savage den,
There, calm, alone, of resignation preach —
My Christ's examples better precepts teach."
Where the cold limbs of gentle Lazarus lay,
I find him weeping o'er the humid clay ;
His spirit groaned, while the beholders said,
With gushing eyes, " See how he loved the dead !"
Yes, 'tis my boast to harbor in my breast
The sensibilities by God exprest ;
Nor shall the mollifying hand of Time,
Which wipes off common sorrows, cancel mine.
From this time a pensive melancholy took
the place of the quiet gayety that had pre
viously distinguished her manners; but her
life was not marked by any event of partic
ular interest until the summer of 1781, when
her husband was taken prisoner by a party
of tories, and her sensitive spirit was crushed
in despair. She fled to Albany, where he re
joined her at the end of a week ; but his sud
den restoration produced an excitement even
deeper than that occasioned by his supposed
death, and she never regained hei health, no*
scarcely her composure. She returned to
Tonihanick, and in the spring of 1783 revis
ited New York, in the hope that a change
of scene and the society of her early friends
would restore something of her strength ar.d
happiness ; but war had changed the pleas
ant places she remembered, and her dearest
friends were dead. She went back with her
husband to Tonihanick, where she died on
the 23d of the following .November. Her
last return to her home is commemorated in
these pleasing verses:
Hail, happy shades ! though clad with heavy
At sight of you with joy my bosom glows ; [snows,
Ye arching pines that bow with every breeze,
Ye poplars, elms, all hail, my well-known trees !
And now my peaceful mansion strikes my eye,
And now the tinkling rivulet I spy ; —
My little garden, Flora, hast thou keptj
And watched my pinks and lilies while I wept ?
Ah me ! that spot with blooms so lately graced,
WTith storms and driving snows is now defaced :
Sharp icicles from every bush depend,
And frosts all dazzling o'er the beds extend ;
Yet soon fair spring shall give another scene,
And yellow cowslips gild the level green ;
My little orchard, sprouting at each bough,
Fragrant with clustering blossoms deep shall glow :
Oh ! then 't is sweet the tufted grass to tread,
But sweeter slumb'ring in the balmy shade ;
The rapid humming-bird, with ruby breast,
Seeks the parterre with early blue-bells drest,
Drinks deep the honeysuckle dew, or drives
The lab'ring bee to her domestic hives ;
Then shines the lupin bright with morning gems,
And sleepy poppies nod upon their stems ;
The humble violet and the dulcet rose,
The stately lily then, and tulip, blows. . . .
But when the vernal breezes pass away,
And loftier Phoebus darts a fiercer ray,
The spiky corn then rattles all around,
And dashing cascades give a pleasing sounc7! ;
Shrill sings the locust with prolonged note,
The cricket chirps familiar in each cot ;
The village children, rambling o'er yon hill,
With berries all their painted baskets fill :
They rob the squirrels' little walnut store,
And climb the half-exhausted tree for more.
Or else to fields of maize nocturnal hie,
Where hid, th' elusive watermelons lie
Then load their tender shoulders with the prey,
And laughing bear the bulky fruit away.
Mrs. Bleecker possessed considerable beau-
tv, and she was much admired in society. A
collection of her posthumous works, in prose
and verse, was published in 1793, and again
in 1809, with a notice of her life by her
daughter, Mrs Marietta V. Faugeres.
PHILLIS WHEATLEY PETERS.
(Born 1754— Died 1794).
THIS "daughter of the murky Senega],
as she is styled by an admiring con:emporar
critic, we suppose may be considered as a
Americai', since she was but six years of ag
when brought to Boston and sold in the slave
market of that city, in 1761. If not so grea
a poet as the abbe Gregoire contended, sh
was certainly a remarkable phenomenon, anc
her name is entitled to a place in the histo
ries of her race, of her sex, and of our liter
alure.
She was purchased by the wife of Mr
John Wheatley, a respectable merchant o:
Boston, Who was anxious to superintend the
education of a domestic to attend upon her
person in the approaching period of old age
This amiable woman on visiting the market
was attracted by the modest demeanor of a
little child, in a sort of "fillibeg," who hac
just arrived, and taking her home, confided
her instruction in part to a daughter, who,
pleased with her good behavior and quick
apprehension, determined to teach her to
read and write. The readiness with which
she acquired knowledge surprised as much
us it pleased her mistress, and it is probable
that but few of the white children of Boston
were brought up under circumstances better
calculated for the full development of their nat
ural abilities. Her ambition was stimulated :
she became acquainted with grammar, histo
ry , ancien t and modern geography, and astron
omy, and studied Latin so as to read Horace
with such ease and enjoyment that her French
biographer supposes the great Roman had
considerable influence upon her literary tastes
and the choice of her subjects of composition.
A general interest was felt in the sooty prodi-
g\ ; the best libraries were open to her : and
she had opportunities for conversation with
ihr most accomplished and distinguished per
sons in the city.
Nhe appears to have had but an indifferent
physical constitution, and when a son of Mr.
Wheatley visited England, in 1772, it was
iecided by the advice of the family physician
that Phillis should accompany him for the
benefit of i he sea-voyage. In London she
was treated with nearly as much considera
tion as more recently has been awarded to
Mr. Frederick Douglass. She was intro-?
duced to many of the nobility and gentry,
and would have been received at court but
for the absence of (he royal family from the
metropolis. Her poems were published un
der the patronage of the Countess of Hun
tingdon, wi.h a letter from her master, and
the following curious attestation of their gen
uineness :
"To THK PUBLIC.— As it has been repeatedly sug
gested to the publisher, by persons who have seen
the manuscript, that numbers would be ready to sus
pect they were not really the writings of Phillis, he
has procured the following attestation from the most
respectable characters in Boston, that none might
have the least ground for disputing their original :
\Vc, whose names are underwritten, do assure the
vorld that the poems specified in the following page*
vere (as we verily believe) written by Phillis, a
'ounur negro-girl, who was, but a few years since,
.mm-lit an uncultivated barbarian from* Africa, and
las ever since been, and now is, under the disadvan-
;age of serving as a slave in a family in this town.
She has been examined by some of the best judges,
and is thought qualified to' write them.
HU Excellency THOMAS HI-TOTIIHOX, Governor.
The Hon. A.VDRKW OLIVER Lieut Governor
The Hon. Thorn;,, Hnl.hard, The Rev. Cha*. Chnumev. ri. D.,
I he Hon. John KrviMg, The Rev. Mather IHl,-. j). 1).,
7 he Hon.. Ja.ne- I'.tts. The Rev. Edvv'd I'emhertor., I). D.,
1 he Hon. Hanson Giay. The Rev. Andrew Klhot, ]). I).,
• Hon. James Howdoin, The Rev. Samuel Cooper, B. I).,
Hancock, Ksq., The Rev. Mr. Samuel Mather,
Jo eph fiicru. K<(j.,
Hi -hard Carry, K-q .,
The Kev. Mr. John Moorhend
Mr. John Wheatiey (her tr.asier).1
In 1774 — the year after the return of Phil
is to Boston — her mistress died ; she soon
ost her master, and her younger mistress,
his daughter : and the son having married
nd settled in England, she was left without
protector or a home. The events which
mmediately preceded the Revolution now
ngrossed the attention of those acquaintan-
es who in more peaceful and prosperous
mes would have been her friends: and
lough she took an apartment and attempt-
d in some way to support herself, she saw
vith fears the approach of poverty, and at
st, in despair, resorted to marriage as the
ily alternative of destitution.
', who derived his information
rom M. Giraud, the French consul at Bos-
n in 1805, states that her husband, in the
' I^^^".^lowin* imge- Allude to the content
30
PHILLIS WHEATLEY PETERS.
31
superiority of his understanding to that of
other negroes, was also a kind of phenome
non ; that he " became a lawyer, under the
name of Doctor Peters, and plead before the
tribunals the cause of the blacks ;" and that
" the reputation he enjoyed procured him a
fortune."* But a later biographer! of Phil-
lis declares that Peters " kept a grocery, in
Court street, and was a man of handsome
person and manners, wearing a wig, carry
ing a cane, and quite acting the gentleman ;"
that " he proved utterly unworthy of the dis
tinguished woman who honored him with
her alliance;" that he was unsuccessful in
business, failing soon after their marriage,
and " was too proud and too indolent to ap
ply himself to any occupation below his fan
cied dignity." Whether Peters practised
physic and law or not, it appears pretty cer
tain that he did not make a fortune, and that
the match was a very unhappy one, though
we think the author last quoted, who is one
of the family, shows an undue partiality for
his maternal ancestor. Peters in his adver
sity was not very unreasonable in demand
ing that his wife should attend to domestic
affairs — that she should cook his breakfast
and darn his stockings ; but she too had cer
tain notions of "dignity," and regarded as
altogether beneath her such unpoetical oc
cupations. During the war they lived at
Wilmington, in the interior of Massachu
setts, and in this period Phillis became the
mother of three children. After the peace,
they returned to Boston, and continued to
live there, most of the time i-n wretched pov
erty, till the death of Phillis, on tne 5th of
December, 1794.
Besides the poems included in the editions
of 1 773 and 1835, she wrote numerous pieces
which have not been printed, one of which
is referred to in the following letter from
Washington :
"CAMBRIDGE, February 28, 1776.
"Miss PHILLIS: Your favor of the 26th of October
did not reach my hands till the middle of December.
Time enough, you will say, to have given an answer
ere this. Granted. But a variety of important occur
rences, continually interposing to distract the mind
and withdraw the attention, I hope will apologise for
the delay, and plead my excuse for the seeming but
not real neglect. 1 thank you most sincerely for your
polite notice of me, in the elegant lines you enclosed ;
and however undeserving I may be of such encomi
um and panegyric, the style and manner exhibit a
striking proof of your poetical talents ; in honor of
which, and as a tr1— "- "-1-- J"~ " ' " — 1J
have published the
aULlXiK uruui Ui ^uui JJUCLUJCU LeiirjiiLo , tu nuinji \JL
-hich, and as a tribute justly due to you, 1 would
nave published the poem, had I not been apprehen
sive that, while I only meant to give the world this
* An Inquiry concerning the Intellectual and Moral Fac
ulties and Literature of Nesrroes, followed with an Account
of the Lives and Works of Fifteen Ne-roes and Mulattoes,
distinguished in Science, Literature, and the Arts : By H.
Grfigoire, formerly Bishop of Blois. Member ot the Con
servative Senate, of the Institute of France, <fec., <fcc. Trans
lated by D. B. Warden, Secretary of Legation, &c. Brook
lyn, 16 10
t See memoir prefixed to the edition of her poems pub
lished by Light & Ilorton. Boston, W35.
sivt; iimu wniic i Miuj in<_-c*ni/ IA^ ft i » *- mv^ »»
new instance of your genius, I might have incurred
the imputation of vanity. This, and nothing else, de
termined me not to give it place in the public prints
If you should ever come to Cambridge, or near head
quarters, 1 shall be happy to see a person so favored
by the muses, and to whom Nature has been so lib
eral and beneficent in her dispensations. I am, with
great respect, your obedient, humble servant,
"GKOHGE WASHINGTON."
In a note to the memoir of Phillis pub
lished by one of her descendants, it is stated
that after her death, her papers, which had
been confided to an acquaintance, were de
manded by Peters, and yielded to his impor
tunity ; and that Peters subsequently went
to the south, carrying with him these papers,
which were never afterward heard of. The
MSS., however, are still in existence: they
are owned by an accomplished citizen of
Philadelphia, whose mother was one of the
patrons of the author. I learn from this gen
tleman that Phillis wrote with singular flu
ency, and that she excelled particularly in
acrostics and in other equally difficult tricks
of literary dexterity.
The intellectual character of Phillis Wheat-
ley Peters has been much discussed, but chief
ly by partisans. On one hand, Mr. Jefferson
declares that " the pieces published under her
name are below the dignity of criticism," and
that " the heroes of the Dunciad are to her
as Hercules to the author of that poem ;" and
on the other hand, the abbe Gregoire, Mr.
Clarkson, and many more, see in her works
the signs of a genuine poetical inspiration.
They seem to me to be quite equal to much
of the contemporary verse that is admitted
to be poetry by Phillis's severest judges ;
though her odes, elegies, and other compo
sitions, are but harmonious commonplace, ii
would be difficult to find in the productions
of American women, for the hundred and fif
ty years that had elapsed since the death of
Mrs. Bradstreet, anything superior in senti
ment, fancy, or diction.
— In a portrait of Phillis, prefixed to her
poems and declared to be an extraordinary
likeness, she is represented as of a rather
pretty and intelligent appearance. It is from
a picture painted while she was in Lone
32
PHILLIS WHEATLEY PETERS.
ON TIIK DKATH OF THE REV. MR.
<;KOJ«;K \VHITK FIELD.— ITTO.
Hui.. happy saint! on thine immortal throne,
Possessed of glory, life, and bliss unknown:
^ «' !"'•" no more the music of thv tongue;
Thy wonted auditories cease to throng.
Thy sermons in unequalled accents flowed,
And every bosom with devotion glowed;
Thou didst, in strains of eloquence refined,
Inflame the heart, and captivate the mind.
Unhappy, we the setting sun deplore,
Sj glorious once, but ah ! it shines no more.
Behold the prophet in his towering flight!
He leaves the earth for heaven's unmeasured height,
And worl-ls unknown rece'vc him from our sight.
There Whitefield win-rswith rapid course his way,
And sails to Zirm through vast seas of day.
Thy prayers, great saint, and thine incessant cries,
Have pierced the bosom of thy native skies.
Thou, moon, hast seen, and all the stars of light,
How hi- 1: is wrestled with his God by night.
He prayel that -race in every heart might dwell ;
He loiued to see America excel;
He charged its youth that every grace divine
Should with full lustre in their conduct shine.
That Savior, which his soul did first receive,
The greatest gift that even a God can give,
He freely olll-red to the numerous throng
That on his lips with list'ning pleasure hung.
" Take him, ye wretched, for your only good,
Take him, ye starving sinners, for your food;
Ye thirsty, come to this life-giving stream,
Ye preachers, take him for your joyful theme;
Take hi:n, my dear Americans." he said,
^Be your c -mplaints ,„, his kind bosom laid:
Take him. ye Africans, he longs for you;
Impartial Savior, is his title due:
Washed in the fount. (in of redeeming blood,
lou shall he sons, and kinns. and priests to God."
^But though arrested by the hand of death,
WhitefieW no more exerts his lab'rin- breath,
YtA let us view him in the eternal skies,
Let every heart to this bright vision rise;
While the t >mb safe retains its sacred trust,
Till life divine reanimates his dust
FANCY.
FM,M A POEM ON THK IMAGINATION.
THOUGH Winter frowns, t, Fancy's raptured
The fields may flourish, an. I -ay scenes arise; [eyes
The tru/cii derps may burst their iron bands,
And r»|d their waters murmur o'er the sands.
Fair Flor.i m:iy resume her fra-rant rei-n,
Ar.d with h-.-r flowery riches de--]< the plain;
Showers ma) descend, and dews their gems disclose,
And nectar sparkle on the blooming rose. . . .
Fancy mi-lit ,10U- ],,,r si||v,>n pinions try
To rise from ,.;irth. and sweep the expans - on }uVh ;
From Tithon's bed now might Aurora rise,
Her cheeks all plowing with celestial dyi-.
While a pure stream of li-ht o'erflows' the skies.
The mniiar.-h of the day I mLdit heliold.
And all the mountains tipped with radiant gold,
But I reluctant leave the pleasing views,
Which Fancy dresses to delight the muse;
Winter austere forbids me to aspire.
And northern tempests damp the rising fire :
They chill the tides of P'ancy's flowing sea
Onse, then, my song, cease then the unequio l
A FAREWELL TO AMERICA.
TO MRS. S. W.
AIIIKU, New England's smiling meads,
Adieu, the flowery plain ;
I leave thine opening charms, O Spring
And tempt the roaring main.
In vain for me the flow'rets rise,
And boast their gaudy pride,
While here beneath the northern skies
I mourn for health denied.
Celestial maid of rosy hue,
Oh let me feel thy reign !
I languish till thy face I view,
Thy vanished joys regain.
Susannah mourns, nor can I bear
To see the crystal shower,
Or mark the tender falling teat,
At sad departure's hour;
Nor unregarding can I see
Her soul with grief opprest ,
But let no sighs, no groans for me,
Steal from its pensive breast.
In vain the feathered warblers sing,
In vain the garden blooms,
And on the bosom of the spring
Breathes out her sweet perfumes,
While for Britannia's distant shore
We sweep the liquid plain,
And with astonished eyes explore
The wide-extended main.
Lo J Health appears, celestial dame !
Complacent and serene,
With Hebe's mantle o'er her frame,
With soul-delighting mien.
To mark the vale where London lies,
With i-iisty vapors crowned,
Which cloud Aurora's thousand dyes,
And veil her charms around.
Why, Pluebus, moves thy car so slow «
So slow thy rising ray ?
Give us the famous town to view,
Thou glorious king of day !
For thee, Britannia, I resign
New En-land's smiling fields;
To view narain her charms divine,
What joy the prospect yields !
But thou. Temptation, hence away,
AVith all thy fatal train,
Nor once seduce my soul away,
By thine enchanting strain.
Thrice happy they, whose heavenly shield
Secures their soul from harms,
And fell Temptation on the field
Of all its power disarms '
SUSANNAH ROW SON.
(Born 1762-Died 1824).
SCPANNAH HASWELL, a daughter of Lieu
tenant William Haswell of the British navy,
was about seven y ears of age when her father,
then a widower, was sent to the New Eng
land station, in 1769. After being wrecked
on Lovell's island, the family, consisting of
the lieutenant, his daughter, and her nurse,
were settled at Nantasket, where Haswell
married a native of the colony, and resided
at the beginning of the Revolution, when,
being a half-pay officer, he was considered a
prisoner of war, and sent into the interior, and
subsequently, by cartel, to Halifax, whence
he proceeded to London. His other children
were two soris, who became officers in the
American navy, in which they were honor
ably distinguished.
Miss Haswell, while a child, in Massa
chusetts, was often in the company of James
Otis, and his sister, Mrs. Warren, who were
pleased with her precocity, and careful edu
cation, and she won then many encomiums
from the great orator, which were remem
bered in after years with more delight than
all the plaudits of the dress circle or the
praises of the critics. She arrived in London
about the year 1784, and in 1786 was married
there to William Rowson, who was probably
in some way connected with the theatre. In
the same year she published her first novel,
Victoria, which was dedicated to Georgiana,
Duchess of Devonshire, who became her pa
troness and introduced her to the Prince of
Wales, through whom she obtained a pen
sion for her father. She next edited Mary or
the Test of Honor, a novel, published in 1785,
and wrote, in quick succession, A Trip to Par
nassus, A Critique of Authors and Perform
ers, The Fille de Chambre, The Inquisitor,
Mentoria, and Charlotte Temple, the tale by
which she is now chiefly known, of which
more than twenty-five thousand copies were
sold in a few years.
In 1793 Mrs. Rowson returned to the Uni
ted States, and was for three years engaged
as an actress, in the Philadelphia theatre.
She was pretty and graceful, and was a fa
vorite in genteel comedy, but while attentive
to her professional duties, she was still in
dustrious as an author, and wrote The Trials
of the Heart, a novel ; Slaves in Algiers,
an opera; The Female Patriot, a comedy;
ar.d The Volunteers, a farce relating to the
whiskey insurrection in Pennsylvania. In
1795, while 'temporarily in Baltimore, she
wrote The Standard of Liberty, a poetical
address to the armies of the United States,
which was recited from the stage by Mrs.
Whiilock, one of the most accomplished ac
tresses of the day, before all the uniformed
companies of the city, in full dress. In 1796
she wras engaged at the Federal-street theatre
in Boston, where, at the end of a season, she
closed her histrionic career, by appearing at
her benefit, in her own comedy of The Amer
icans in England.
She now opened a school for young wo
men, which soon became very popular, so that
it was thronged from the West Indies, the
British provinces, and all the states of the
Union. It was continued at Medford, New
ton, and Boston, many years, with uniform
success. But the business of instruction did
not engross her attention, since she found
time to compile a Dictionary and several
other school books, and to write Reuben
and Rachel, an American novel ; Biblical
Dialogues, a work evincing considerable re
search and reflection, and a volume of poems,
and for two years to sustain a weekly ga
zette chiefly by her own contributions. She
died in Boston, on the second of March, 1824,
in the sixty-second year of her age.
Mrs. Rowson translated several of the oaes
of Horace and the tenth Eclogue of Virgil,
and she wrote many original songs and other
short pieces, of which the most ambiticUo
was an irregular poem On the Birth of Ge
nius, whicn was once much admired. On ly
a few of her -songs are now remembered,
and these less for any poetical qualities than
for a certain social and patriotic spirit. Ilei
" America, Commerce, and Freedom," is
one of our few national songs. It would not
dishonor a Dibdin, but it bears no marks o*
a feminine genius.
SUSANNAH ROWSON.
AMERICA, COMMERCE, AND FREEDOM.
How blest a life a sailor leads,
From clime to clime still ranging ;
For as the calm the storm succeeds,
The scene delights by changing!
When tempests howl along the main,
Some object will remind us,
And cheer with hopes to meet again
Those friends we 've left behind us.
Then, under snug sail, we laugh at the gale,
And though landsmen look pale, never heed 'em ;
But to-;s oiF a glass to a favorite lass,
To America, commerce, and freedom !
And when arrived in sight of land,
Or safe in port rejoicing,
Our ship we moor, our sails we hand,
Whilst out the boat is hoisting.
With eager haste the shore we reach,
Our friends delighted greet us ;
And, tripping lightly o'er the beach,
The pretty lasses meet us.
When the full-flowing bowl has enlivened the soul,
To foot it we merrily lead 'em,
And each bonny lass will drink off a glass
To America, commerce, and freedom !
Our cargo sold, the chink we share,
And gladly we receive it ;
And if we meet a brother tar
Who wants, we freely give it.
No freeborn sailor yet had store,
But cheerfully would lend it;
And when 'tis gone, to sea for more —
We earn it but to spend it.
Then drink round, my boys, 'tis the first of our joys
To relieve the distressed, clothe and feed 'em :
Tis a task which we share with the brave and the fair
In this land of commerce and freedom !
KISS THE BRIM, AND BID IT PASS.
WHEX Columbia's shores, receding,
Lessen to the gazing eye,
Cape nor island intervening
Break th' expanse of sea and sky ;
When the evening shades, descending,
Shed a softness o'er the mind,
When the yearning heart will wander
To the circle left behind —
Ah, then to Friendship fill the glass,
Kiss the brim, and bid it pass.
When, the social board surrounding,
At the evening's slight repast,
Often will our bosoms tremble
As we listen to the blast ;
( i a/ing on the moon's pale lustre,
Fervent shall our prayers arise
For thy peace, thy health, thy safety,
Unto Him who formed the skies :
To Friendship oft we'll fill the glass,
K'f«f me brim, and bid it pass.
When in India's sultry climate,
Mid the burning torrid zone,
Will not oft thy fancy wander
From her bowers to thine own 1
WThen, her richest fruits partaking,
Thy unvitiated taste
Oft shall sigh for dear Columbia,
And her frugal, neat repast:
Ah, then to Friendship fill the glass,
Kiss the brim, and bid it pass !
When the gentle eastern breezes
Fill the homebound vessel's sails,
Undulating soft the ocean,
Oh, propitious be the gales !
Then, when every danger's over,
Rapture shall each heart expand ;
Tears of unmixed joy shall bid thee
Welcome to thy native land :
To Friendship, then, we'll fill the glass,
Kiss the brim, and bid it pass.
THANKSGIVING.
AuTtTMW, receding, throws aside
Her robe of many a varied dye,
And Winter in majestic pride
Advances in the lowering- sky.
The laborer in his granary stores
The golden sheaves all safe from spoil,
While from her horn gay Plenty pours
Her treasures to reward his toil.
To solemn temples let us now repair,
And bow in grateful adoration there ;
Bid the full strain in hallelujahs rise,
To waft the sacred incense to the skies.
Now the hospitable board
Groans beneath the rich repast —
All that luxury can afford
Grateful to the eye or taste ;
While the orchard's sparkling juice
And the vintage join their powers;
All that nature can produce,
Bounteous Heaven bids be ours.
Let us give thanks : Yes, yes, be sure,
Send for the widow and the orphan poor ;
Give them wherewith to purchase clothes and food
This the best way to prove our gratitude.
On the hearth high flames the fire,
Sparkling tapers lend their light,
Wit and Genius now aspire
On Fancy's gay and rapid flight ;
Now the viol's sprightly lay,
As the moments light advance,
Bids us revel, sport, and play,
Raise the song, or lead the dance.
Come, sportive Love, and sacred Friendship come,
Help us to celebrate our harvest home ;
In vain the year its annual tribute pours, [hours.
Unless you grace the scene, and lead the laughing
MARGARETTA V. FAUGERES.
(Born 1771-Died 18)1).
MARGARETTA V. BLEECKER was a daugh
ter of Mrs. Anne Eliza Bleecker, of whose
life and writings a notice has been given in
the preceding pages.* She was born at Tom-
hanick in 1771, and was about twelve years
of age when her mother died. Her educa
tion, which had thus far been conducted with
care and judgment, was continued under the
best teachers of New York, where she made
her appearance in society, soon after the close
of the Revolution, as a highly accomplished
girl, of the best connexions, and a liberal for
tune. Her home was thronged with suitors,
but, with a perversity which is often paral
leled, she preferred the least deserving, one
Dr. Peter Faugeres, an adventurer who shone
in drawing rooms in the flimsy and worn-cut
costume of French infidelity, and him, in op
position to the wishes of her faiher, she mar
ried. Mr. Bleecker died in 1795, and Fau-
geres squandered the estate, and treated his
wife in a scandalous manner, until 1798, when
she was relieved of his presence by the yellow
fever. It seems, from some allusions in her
poems to the wretch Thomas Pamelas well
as from her admiration of Faugeres, that she
had a deeper sympathy with the vulgar skep
ticism of the time than was possible fora
woman who united much capacity with vir
tue ; bu observation of its tendencies had
perhaps led her to reflection, and she now
came to believe that an inquiring and trust
ing spirit is quite as profound as one that
doubts and despises. She became a teacher
in an academy at New Brunswick, but her
constitution was broken and her mind enfee
bled by her misfortunes, and she died, in the
twenty-ninth year of her age, in Brooklyn,
on the ninth of January, 1801.
Mrs. Faugeres in 1793 edited the posthu
mous works of her mother, to which she ap
pended several of her own compositions, in
prose and verse. In 1795 she published
Belisarius, a tragedy, in five acts, which is
spoken of in the preface as her " first dramat
ic performance," as if she contemplated the
*Ante, p. 28.
devotion of her attention to this kind of liter
ature ; and in the third number of the New
York Weekly Magazine, for the same year,
is an extract from a MS. comedy by her, but
this appears never to have been printed.
Belisarius* was evidently suggested by the
fine romance of Marmontel, but Mrs. Fau
geres combines the tradition of the putting
out of the eyes of the great Byzantine, with
that of Theophanes and Malala, that after a
short imprisonment he was restored to his
honors. Though unsuited to the stage, this
tragedy has considerable merit, and is much
superior to the earlier compositions of the
author. The style is generally dignified and
correct, and free from the extravagant decla
mation into which the subject would have
seduced a writer of less taste and judgment.
We have but a glimpse of the private in
trigues that are revealed in the secret his
tory by Procopius. Some time after the mar
riage of Belisarius to Antonina, they are re
ferred to in conversation between Arsaces,
a Bulgarian noble, and Julia, the niece of
Justinian, of whom Belisarius had been a
lover :
Arsaces. My darling Julia, drop these vain regrets,
For B disarms is no longer thine :
Is he not wedded 1
Julia. Too sure he is, and therefore I will weep,
For he was mine, and naught but wicked craft
E'er rent him from my bosom. Oh, my love!
Oh, my betrothed love ! how are we severed !
Cursed be the monsters of iniquity
Who thus have burst the tenderest bonds asunder
Affection ever knew ! Thou art betrayed :
Dungeons, and poverty, and shame, are thine
And everlasting blindness ; while I, deserted,
Roam round the world
In the second act Belisarius appears, accord
ing to the narrative of Tzetzes, in the char-
* Of BelisHrius there were probably printed only enough
copies for subscriber.*, and it is now anioiiu the rarest ot
American books. While making a collection of nearly
eteht hundred volumes of pot- try and verses written in
this country. I never saw it : mid Unnlap, who was a very
indHStrJnu- collector of plays, alludes to it in his History
of the American Theatre, as a work which had eluclec
his research. It is not in any of our public libraries—
which indeed, are amoni.' the last places to be examined
for American literature— and the only copy I have «een—
the one now before me— is from the curious collecr-.a ct
Henry A. Brady, Esq.
36
MARGARETTA V. FAUGERES.
aeter of a beggar, and in wandering through
the country he is thus introduced to Gelimer,
the captive king of Carthage, whom he him
self had long before brought in triumph to
Byzantium :
Gehnier, at daybreak, in a gar.lf-n.— Enter Amala, Ins wife.
A mala. T is yet too soon to labor, love ; come, sit.
This air Mows fresh, and those sweet, bending flow-
Heavy with dew, shed such a fragrance round, [ers,
And so melodious sings the early lark,
'T would be a pity not to enjoy the hour.
Come, sit upon this sod. See, the mom breaks
In streams of quivering light upon the hills,
And the loose clouds, in changeful colors gay,
Now tinged with crimson, and with amber now,
Sail slow along the brightening horizon.
Gelimer. Yes, my Amala, 't is a lovely morn,
And might inspire me with these calm ideas,
But that my thoughts are dwelling on the stranger,
Who claimed your hospitality, last night.
You said he was a soldier — old, and poor
And that excites compassion ; for I grieve
To see a veteran, who has spent his strength
In the big perils of uncertain war,
Far from his home, his country, and his friends ;
Who oft has slept upon the frozen earth,
And suffered grievous vvant....That he, whose age
Has made him bald, and chilled his sickly veins,
And rendered him quite useless to himself,
Should be turned out upon the world, adrift,
To seek a scanty sustenance from alms !....
'T is much to be lamented.
In the following scene the degraded chiefs
recognise each other, and Belisarius relates
the story of his barbarous punishment:
Bel. When I first heard it my full heart beat slow,
My wonted fortitude forsook me; and when I thought
It was Juxtinian. that urged the blow,
Casting my hopeless eyes to yon bright heaven,
As 'twere to take a lasting leave of light,
lining my hands, and bathed me in my tears.
The executioner, touched with my sorrows,
Sank on the ground and cried, « You are undone !
\\ retched old man. why does your heart not break,
And Lrivc you a release from such a wo!"
But it is past, and, tranquil as the flood
When gently kissed by Twilight's softliest gale,
My spirit rests, and scarce consents to weep
When Memory would the piteous tale recall.
That most striking virtue of Belisarius,
which appeared to Gibbon "above or below
the character i.f a man," is happily illustra
ted, though by incidents that would seem
very extraordinary were the historians upon
ibis point less explicit and particular. The
Prince i.-f Bulgaria en<Wvors to enlist the
blind old -eneral against the By/aiitinrs,
and causes his proposals to be accompanied
with a flourish of martial instruments, to
•enow in him
— the memory of past scenes,
When his proud steed, champing his golden bit,
fiore him o'er heaps of slaughtered enemies,
While vanquished thousands at his presence knelt
And kissed the dust o'er which the conqueror rode.
Belisarius says, declining —
Shall I now
Sully the glories of a long life's toil,
And justify the cruelty of my foes 1
And then —
— Music, such as lulls my wayward cares,
Is often heard within the peasant's hamlet,
What time gray Twilight veils the eastern sky,
When the blithe maiden carols rustic songs
To soothe the infirmities of peevish age,
Or, when the moon shines on the dew-gemm'd plain,
Attunes her voice to chant some lightsome air
For those who dance upon the tufted green.
Such are the strains I love, and such as float
On the cool gale from a far mountain's side,
Where some lc:ie shepherd fills his simple pipe,
Calling the echoes from their dewy beds,
To chase mute sleep away. Ah ! blessed is he
If bis choice melody be ne'er disturbed
By the death-breathing trumpet's woful tone.
Prince. If thou wert ever thus averse to war,
General, why didst thou fight ]
Bel. To purchase peace, not to extend dominion.
Peace was the crown of conquest.
The heroine of the piece is the empress The-
odosia, who in the third act inquires of her
creature Barsames the result of his last ef
forts to detect a conspiracy :
Theouosia. Did you see Phsedrus ]
Barsames. Yes : but he did not know me.
He sat upon a heap of mouldering bones
With his shrunk hands, thus, folded on his breast ;
And his sunk eyes were fixed on the ground
Half shut, and o'er his bosom streamed his beard,
Hoary and long. I twice accosted him
Ere he regarded me ; then, looking up,
He eyed me with a vague and senseless gaze,
And heaving a most lamentable sigh,
Dropped his pale face upon his breast again.
T/teo. I' 11 go myself, this moment, and give ordera
For his removal to some cheerful place,
Where kind attendance, and my best physician,
May woo his scattered senses back again
When Reason rises cloudless in his brain,
Embracing courteous Hope, then I will go
And break the vain enchantment
This will be sweet revenge ! Then let him try
If tlie bright wit that jeered a woman's foibles
Will light the dungeon where her fury dwells !
After the publication of Belisarius, Mrs.
Failures was an occasional contributor to
the New York Monthly Magazine, and some
other periodicals. She appears to have been
a favorite among her literary acquaintances,
and is frequently referred 'to in their pub
lished poems in terms of sympathy and ad
miration.
MARGARETTA V. FAUGERES.
THE HUDSON.
FROM A POE.M PUBLISHED IN 1793.
NILE'S beauteous waves and Tiber's swelling tide
Have been recorded by the hand of Fame,
A ad various floods, which through earth's channels
glide,
From some enraptured bard have gained a name :
E'en Thames and Wye have been the poet's theme,
And to their charms has many a harp been strung,
Whilst, oh ! hoar Genius of old Hudson's stream,
Thy mighty river never has been sung !
Say, shall a female string her trembling lyre,
And to thy praise devote the adventurous song 1
Fired with the theme, her genius shall aspire,
And the notes sweeten as they float along
Through many a blooming wild and woodland green
The Hudson's sleeping waters winding stray ;
Now mongst the hills its silvery waves are seen,
Through arching willows now they steal away :
Now more majestic rolls the ample tide,
Tall waving elms its clovery borders shade,
And many a stately dome, in ancient pride
And hoary grandeur, there exalts its head.
There trace the marks of Culture's sunburnt hand,
The honeyed buckwheat's clustering blossoms
view —
Dripping rich odors, mark the beard-grain bland,
The loaded orchard, and the flax-field blue ;
The grassy hill, the quivering poplar grove,
The copse of hazel, and the tufted bank,
The long green valley where the white flocks rove,
The jutting rock, o'erhung with ivy dank :
The tall pines waving on the mountain's brow,
Whose lofty spires catch day's last lingering beam ;
The bending willow weeping o'er the stream,
The brook's soft gurglings, and the garden's glow.
Low sunk between the Alleganian hills,
For many a league the sullen waters glide,
And the deep murmur of the crowded tide
With pleasing awe the wondering voyager fills.
On the green summit of yon lofty clift
A peaceful runnel gurgles clear and slow,
Then down the craggy steep-side dashing swift,
Tumultuous falls in the white surge below.
Here spreads a clovery lawn its verdure far,
Beyond it mountains vast their forests rear,
And long ere Day hath left her burnished car,
The dews of night have shed their odors there.
There hangs a lowering rock across the deep ;
Hoarse roar the waves its broken base around ;
Through its dark caverns noisy whirlwinds sweep,
While Horror startles at the fearful sound.
The shivering, sails that cut the fluttering breeze,
Glide through these winding rocks with airy
sweep,
Beneath the cooling glooms of waving tre<js,
And sloping pastures specked with fleecy sheep.
VERSES
ADDRESSED TO THF MK.M I! F.RS OF THE CT.VCISN \ 1 1
OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK ON THE 4TH OF JULY
COME, round Freedom's sacred shrine,
Flowery garlands let us twine ;
And while we our tribute bring,
Grateful paeans let us sing :
Sons of Freedom, join the lay —
'Tis Columbia's natal day !
Banish all the plagues of life,
Fretful Care and restless Strife ,
Let the memory of your woes
Sink this day in sweet repose ;
Even let Grief itself be gay
On Columbia's na:al day.
Late a despot's cruel hand
Sent oppression through your land ;
Piteous plaints and tearful moan
Found not access to his throne ;
Or if heard, the poor,. forlorn,
Met but with reproach and scorn.
Paine, with eager virtue, then
Snatched from Truth her diamond pen —
Bade the slaves of tyranny
Spurn their bonds, and dare be free.
Glad they burst their chains away :
'Twas Columbia's natal day !
Vengeance, who had slept too long,
Waked to vindicate our wrong ;
Led her veterans to the field,
Sworn to perish ere to yield :
Weeping Memory yet can tell
How they fought and how they fell !
Lured by virtuous Washington —
Liberty's most favored son —
Victory gave your sword a sheath,
Binding on your brows a wreath
Which can never know decay
While you hail this blissful day.
Ever be its name revered ;
Let the shouts of joy be heard
From where Hampshire's bleak winds blow,
Down to Georgia's fervid glow ;
Let them all in this agree :
" Hail the day which made us free !"
Bond your eyes toward that shore
Where Bellona's thunders roar :
There your Gallic brethren see
Struggling, bleeding to be free !
Oh ! unite your prayers that they
May soon announce their natal day.
O thou Power ! to whom we owe
All the blessings that we kuow,
Strengthen thou our rising youth,
Teach them wisdom, virtue, truth —
That when we are sunk in clay,
They may keep this glorious day !
ELIZA TOWN SEND.
(Born 1789-Died 1854).
ELIZA TOWNSEND, descended from a stock
that for two centuries lias occupied a distin
guished and honorable position in American
society, was the first native poet of her sex
whose writings commanded the applause of
judicious critics; — the first whose poems
evinced any real inspiration, or rose from
the merely mechanical into the domain of
art. The late Mr. Nicholas Biddle, whose
judgment in literature was frequently illus
trated by the most admirable criticisms, once
mentioned to me that a pri/e ode which Miss
Towrfsend wrote for the Port Folio while he
himself was editor of that miscellany, soon
after the death of Dennie, was in his opinion
the finest poem of its kind which at that
time had been written in ihis country, and
many of her other pieces received the best
approval of the period, but, as she kept her
authorship a secret, without securing for her
any personal reputation.
She was born in Boston, and her youth
was passed in the troubled times which suc
ceeded the Revolution, when our own coun
try was distracted by the strifes of parties,
and Europe was convulsed with the tumult
uous overthrows of governments whose sub
jects had caught from us the spirit of liberty.
She sympathized with the feelings which
weie popular in New England, in regard
both to our own and to foreign affairs, as is
shown by her Occasional Ode, written in June,
1809, in which Napoleon is denounced- with
a vehemence mid power which remind us of
the celebrated ode of Soul hey, written nearly
five years afterward, during the negotiations
of 181 1. This poem was first printed in the
seventh volume of the Monthly Anthology,
and though it hears the marks of hash com
position, in some minute defects, it is alto- '
gether a line performance. The splendid ge
nius of Napoleon was not yet revealed in all
its magnificence even to those who were the
immediate instruments of his will, but to all
mankind his name \\ a> a word of division,
and in this country those whose opinions
were fruits of anything else th/m passion
were commonly led by a conser 'alive spirit
to distrusl the man and to credit the worst
views of his actions. This was most true
in Boston, where, at the beginning of Mr.
Madison's administration, Miss Townsend's
ode was probably deemed noi less just than
poetical.
Among the pieces which she published
about this time was Another Castle in the
Air, suggested by Professor Frisbie's agree
able poem referred to in its title ; Stanzas
commemorative of Charles Brockden Brown ;
Lines on the Burning of the Richmond The
atre ; and a poem to Southey, upon the ap
pearance of his Curse of Kehama. At a later
period she published several poems of a more
religious cast, by one of which, The Incom
prehensibility of God, she is best known. Of
this, the Rev. Dr. Cheever remarks, that " it
is equal in grandeur to the Thanatopsis of
Bryant," and that " it will not suffer by com
parison with the most sublime pieces of
Wordsworth or of Coleridge."
Miss Townsend has not written, at least
for the public, in many years, and there has
been no collection of the poems with which,
in the earlier part of this cenlury, she en
riched The Monthly Anthology, The Port
Folio, The Unitarian Miscellany, and other
periodicals which were then supported by the
contributions of the youthful Adams. Allston.
Buckminster, Webster, Ticknor, Greenwood,
Edward Channing, Alexander Everett, and
others of whose early hopes the fulfilment is
written in our intellectual history. Such a
collection would undoubtedly be well re
ceived.
There is a religious and poetical dignity,
with all the evidences of a fine and richly-
cultivated understanding, in most of the po
ems of Miss Townsend, which entitle her
to be ranked among the distinguished liter
ary women who were her contemporaries,
and in advance of all who in her own coun
try preceded her.
She is still living, in a secluded manner,
with her sister, also maiden, in the old fam
ily mansion in Boston. They are the last of
their race.
38
ELIZA TOWNSEND.
AN OCCASIONAL ODE.
WRITTEN IN JUNE, 1809
FIRST of all created things,
God's eldest born, oh tell me, Time !
E'er since within that car of thine,
Drawn by those steeds, whose speed divine,
Through every state and every clime,
Nor pause nor rest has known,
Mongst all the scenes long since gone by
Since first thou opedst thy closeless eye,
Did its scared glances ever rest
Upon a vision so unblest,
So fearful, as our own 1
If thus thou start'st in wild affright
At what thyself hast brought to light,
Oh yet relent ! nor still unclose
New volumes vast of human woes.
Thy bright and bounteous brother, yonder Sun,
Whose course coeval still with thine doth run,
Sickening at the sights unholy,
Frightful crime, and frantic folly,
By thee, presumptuous ! with delight
Forced upon his awful sight,
Abandons half his regal right,
And yields the hated world to night.
And even when through the honored day
He still benignly deigns to sway,
High o'er the horizon prints his burnished tread,
Oft calls his clouds,
With sable shrouds,
To hide his glorious head !
And Luna, of yet purer view,
His sister and his regent too,
Beneath whose mild and sacred reign
Thou darest display thy deeds profane,
Pale and appalled, has frowned her fears,
Or veiled her brightness in her tears ;
While all her starry court, attendant near,
Only glance, and disappear.
But thou, relentless ! not in thee
These horrors wake humanity :
Though sun, and moon, and stars combined,
Ne'er did it change thy fatal mind,
Nor e'er thy wayward steps retrace,
Nor e'er restrain thy coursers' race,
Nor e'er efface the blood thou'dst shed,
Nor raise to life the murdered dead.
Is't not enough, thou spoiler, tell !
That, subject to thy stern behest,
The might of ancient empire fell,
And sunk to drear and endless rest 7
Fallen is the Roman eagle's flight,
The Grecian glory sunk in night,
And prostrate arts and arms no more withstand :
Those own thy Vandal flame and these thy conq'ring
Then be Destruction's sable banner furled, [hand.
Nor wave its shadows o'er the modern world !
In vain the prayer. Still opens wide,
Renewed, each former tragic scene
Of Time's dark drama ; while 'beside
Grief and Despair their vigils keep,
And Memory only lives to weep
The mouldering dust of what has been.
How nameless now the once-famed earth,
That gave to Kosciuszko birth — •
The pillared realm that proudly stood,
Propped by his worth, cemented by his blood!
As towers the lion of the wood
O'er all surrounding living things,
So, mid the herd of vulgar kings,
The dauntless Dalecarlian stood.
" Pillowed by flint, by damps enclosed,"
Upon the mine's cold lap reposed,
Yet firm he followed Freedom's plan;
" Dared with eternal night reside,
And threw inclemency aside," .
Conqu'ror of nature as of man !
And earned by toils unknown before,
Of Blood and Death, the crown he wore.
That radiant crown, whose flood of light
Illumined once a nation's sight —
Spirit of Vasa ! this its doom 1
Gleams in a dungeon's living tomb !
Where'er the frightened mind can fly,
But nearer ruins meet her eye.
Ah ! not Arcadia's pictured scene
Could more the poet's dream engage,
Nor manners more befitting seem
The vision of a golden age,
Than where the chamois loved to roam
Through old Helvetia's rugged home,
Where Uri's echoes loved to swell
To kindred rocks the name of Tell,
And pastoral girls and rustic swains
Were simple as their native plains.
Nor mild alone, but bold the mind,
The soldier and the shepherd joined —
The Roman heraldry restored,
The crook was quartered with the sword.
Their seedtime cheerful labor stored,
Plenty piled their vintage board,
Peace loved, their daily fold to keep,
Contentment tranquillized their sleep —
Till through those giant Guards of Stone,*
Where Freedom fixed her " mountain-throne,
Battle's bloodhounds forced their way
And made the human flock their prey !
Is it Fact, or Fancy tells,
That now another mandate 's gone ]
Hark ! even now those fated wheels
Roll the rapid ruin on !
Lo, where the generous and the good,
The heart to feel, the hand to dare :
Iberia pours her noblest blood,
Iberia lifts her holiest prayer !
The while from all her rocks and vales
Her peasant bands by thousands rise .
Their altar is their native plains,
Themselves the willing sacrifice.
While UK, the « strangest birth of time, '
Red with gore, arid grim with crime,
Whose fate more prodigies attend,
And in whose course mire terrors blend,
And o'er whose birth more portents lowei,
Than ever crowned,
In lore renowned,
* The Alps.
40
ELIZA TOWNSEND.
The Macedonian's natal hour!
IS'ow here, now there, he takes his stand,
The rtabiished earth his footsteps jar;
Goads l> the lii^ht his vassal band,
M hile ebbs or Hows, at his command,
The torrent of the war !
Could the hard, whose powers suhlime
Scaled the heights of epic glory,
\nd rendered in immortal rhyme
Of Rome's disgrace the hlushing story —
Where, formed of treason and of woes,
Pharsalia's gory genius rose —
Might he again
Renew the strain
That once his truant muse had charmed,
Each foreign tone
Unwaked had lain ;
And patriot Spain
And Spain, alone
The Spaniard's patriot heart had warmed !
Then had the chords proclaimed no more
His deeds, his death, renowned of yore ;
Who,* when each lingering hope was slain,
And Freedom fought with Fate in vain,
Lone in the city, and reft of all,
While Usurpation stormed the wall,
The tyrant's entrance scorned to see —
But died, with dying Liberty.
Those chords had raised the local strain ;
That hard a filial flight had ta'en ;
Forgot all else : The ancient past,
Thick in Ohlivion's mists o'ercast,
Or past and present both combined
Within the graspings of his mind ;
In what now is, viewed what hath been ;
The dead within the living seen :
Owned transmigration's strange control,
In Spaniards owned the Cato soul ;
And wailed in tones of martial grief
The valiant band and hero chief,
Who shared in Saragossa's doom,
^nd made their Utica their tomb !
Bright be the amaranth of their fame !
May Palafox a Lucan claim !
That bard no more had filled his rhymes
With Cajsar's greatness. ( 'a>sar's crimes:
Another Cajsur waked the string,
Alike usurper, traitor, king.
Another ( \vsar ! rashly said !
Forgive the falsehood, mighty shade!
Molest Julius' treasons, still we know
The faithful friend, the generous foe;
And even enmityt could see
Some virtues of humanity.
But thou ! by what, accurs'd name
Shall we denote thy features here?
In records of infernal fame
When- shall we find thy black compeer ?
Then, whose perfidious might of mind
Nor pity moves nor faith can bind,
* '''In1 younger Cnto.
" I lis enemies confess
'•'bw virtues of humanity are Cigar's." — AD. CATO.
Whose friends, whose followers vainly crave
That trust which should reward the brave;
Whose foes, mid tenfold war's alarms,
Dread more thy treachery than thine arms :
The Ishmaelite, mid deserts bred,
Who robs at last whom first he fe.l,
The midnight murderer of the guest
With whom lie shared the morning's feast —
This Arab wretch, compared with thee,
Is honor and humanity !
And shall that proud, that ancient land,
In treasure rich, in pageant grand,
Land of romance, where sprang of old
Adventures strange, and champions bold,
Of holy faith, and gallant fight,
And bannered hall, and armored knight,
And tournament, and minstrelsy,
The native land of chivalry ! —
Shall all these " blushing honors" bloom
For Corsica's detested son ]
These ancient worthies own his sway —
The upstart fiend of yesterday 1
Oh, for the kingly sword and shield
That once the victor monarch sped,
What time from Pavia's trophied Held
The royal Frank was captive led !
May Charles's laurels, gained for you,
Ne'er, Spaniards, on your brows expire •
Nor the degenerate sons subdue
The conqu'rors of their nobler sire !
None higher mid the zodiac line
Of sovereigns and of saints you claim,
Than fair Castilia's star could shine,
And brighten down the sky of fame.
Wise, magnanimous, refined,
Accomplished friend of human kind,
Wlio first the Genoese sail unfurled —
The mighty mother of an infant world,
Illustrious Isabel ! — shall thine,
Thy children, kneel at Gallia's shrine]
No ! rise, thou venerated shade,
In Heaven's own armor bright arrayed,
Like Pallas to her Grecian band ;
Nerve every heart and every hand ;
Pervious or not to mortal sight,
Still guard thy gallant offspring's right,
Display thine aegis from afar,
And lend a thunderbolt to war !
God of battles ! from thy throne,
God of vengeance, aid their cause :
Make it, conqu'ring One, thine own !
'Tis faith, and liberty, and laws. *
'T is for these they pour their blood —
The cause of man. the cause of God!
Not now avenge. All-righteous Power,
Penivia's red and ruined hour:
Nor man-led Montezuma's head,
^or Gunfamo/iifs burning bed,
"Nor uive the guiltless up to fate
For Cort s' crimes, Pizarro's hate!
Thou, who beholdst, enthroned afar,
Beyond the vision of the keenest star,
Far through creation's ample round,
The universe's utmost bound :
ELIZA TOWNSENL).
•41
Where war in other shape appears,
The destined plague of other spheres,
Other Napoleons arise
To stain the earth and cloud the skies ;
And other realms in martial ranks succeed,
Fight like Iberians, like Iberians bleed.
If an end is e'er designed
The dire destroyers of mankind,
Oh, be some seraphim assigned
To breathe it to the patriot mind.
What Brutus bright in arms arrayed,
What Corde bares the righteous blade !
Or, if the vengeance, not our own,
Be sacred to thine arm alone,
When shall be signed the blest release
And wearied worlds refreshed with peace
Oh, could the muse but dare to rise
Far o'er these low and clouded skies,
Above the threefold heavens to soar,
And in thy very sight implore ! —
In vain while angels veil them there,
While Faith half fears to lift her prayer,
The glance profane shall Fancy dare 1
Yet there around, a fearful band,
Thy ministers of vengeance stand : .
Lo, at thy bidding stalks the storm ;
The lightning takes a local form;
The floods erect their hydra head ;
The pestilence forsakes his bed ;
Intolerable light appears to wait,
And far-off darkness stands in awful state !
For thee, O Time !
If still thou speedst thy march of crime
'Gainst all that's beauteous or sublime,
Still provest thyself the sworn ally
And author of mortality —
Infuriate Earth, too long supine,
Whilst demon-like thou lovedst to ride,
Ending every work beside,
Shall live to see the end of thine —
Her great revenge shall see !
By prayer shall move th' Almighty power
To antedate that final hour
When the Archangel firm shall stand
Upon the ocean and the land —
His crown a radiant rainbow sphere,
His echoes seven-fold thunders near —
The last dread fiat to proclaim :
Shall swear by His tremendous name,
Who formed the earth, the heavens and sea,
TIME shall no longer be !
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY.
VVHITTEN IN 181-2.
O THOTT, whom we have known so long, so well,
Thou who didst hymn the Maid of Arc, and framed
Of Thalaba the wild and wondrous song ;
And in thy later tale of Times of Old,
Remindest us of our own patriarch fathers,
The Madocs of their age, who planted here
The cross of Christ — and liberty — and peace !
Minstrel of other climes, of higher hopes,
And holier inspirations, who hast ne'er
From her high birth debased the goddess Muse,
To grovel in the dirt of earthly things ;
But learned to mingle with her human tones
Some breathings of the harmonies of heaven !
Joyful to meet thee yet again, we hail
Thy last, thy loftiest lay ; nor chief we thank thee
For every form of beauty, every light
Bestowed by brilliancy, and every grace
That fancy could invent and taste dispose.
Or that creating, consummating power,
Pervading fervor, and mysterious finish,
That something occult, indefinable.
By mortals genius named ; the parent sun
WThence all those rays proceed ; the constant foum
To feed those streams of mind ; th' informing soul
Whose infl lence all are conscious of, but none
Could e'er describe ; whose fine and subtle nature
Seems like th' aerial forms, which legends say
Greeted the gifted eye of saint or seer,
Yet ever mocked the fond inquirer's aim
To scan their essence !
Such alone, we greet not.
Since genius oft (so oft, the tale is trite)
Employs its golden art to varnish vice,
And bleach depravity, till it shall wear
The whiteness of the robes of Innocence t
And Fancy's self forsakes her truest trade,
The lapidary for the scavenger ;
And Taste, regardful of but half her province,
Self-sentenced to a partial blindness, turns
Her notice from the semblance of perfection,
To fix its hoodwinked gaze on faults alone —
And like the owl, sees only in the night,
Not like the eagle, soars to meet the day.
Oblivion to all such ! — For thee, we joy
Thou hast not misapplied the gifts of God,
Nor yielded up thy powers, illustrious captives,
To grace the triumph of licentious Wit.
Once more a female is thy chosen theme ;
And Kailyal lives a lesson to the sex,
How more than woman's loveliness may blend
With all of woman's worth ; with chastened love,
Magnanimous exertion, patient piety,
And pure intelligence. Lo ! from thy wand
Even faith, and hope, and charity, receive
Something more filial and more feminine.
Proud praise enough were this ; yet is there more :
That neath thy splendid Indian canopy,
By fairy fingers woven, of gorgeous threads,
And gold and precious stones, thou hast enwrapped
Stupendous themes that Truth divine revealed,
And answering Reason owned : naught more sub-
Beauteous, or useful, e'er was charactered [lime,
On Hermes' mystic pillars— Egypt's boast,
And more, Pythagoras' lesson, when the ma/e
Of hieroglyphic meaning awed the world !
Could Music's potent charm, as some believed
Have warmth to animate the slumbering dead,
And « lap them in Elysium," second only
To that which shall await in other worlds,
How would the native sons of ancient India
Unclose on thee that wondering, dubious eye,
Where admiration wars with incredulity !
Sons of the morning ! first-born of creation .
What w >uld they think of thee— thee, one of us
ELIZA TO vVNSEND.
Sprung fro :M ;i Liter race, on whom the ends
Of ihisour world have come, that thou shouldstpen
What \ 'aranasi's* venerable towers
In all their pride and plenitude of power,
Ere Conquest spread her bloody banner o'er them,
Or Ruin trod upon their hallowed walls,
Could ne'er excel, though stored with ethic wisdom,
And epic minstrelsy, and sacred lore !
For there, Philosophy's Gantamif first
Taught man to measure mind ; there Valmic hymn'd
The conquering armsof heaven-descended Rama ;
And Calidasa and Vyasa there,
At dillerent periods, but with powers the same,
The Sanscrit song prolonged — of Nature's works,
Of human woes, and sacred Chrishna's ways.
That it should e'er be thine, of Europe born,
To sing of Asia ! that Hindostan's palms
Should bloom on Albion's hills, and Brama'sVedasJ
Meet unconverted eyes, yet unprofaned !
And those same brows the classic Thames had bath'd
Be laved by holy Ganges ! while the lotus,
Fig-tree, and cusa, of its healing banks,
Should, with their derva's vegetable rubies,
Be painted to the life !. ...Not truer touches,
On plane-tree arch above, or roseate carpet,
Spread out beneath, were ever yet employed
When their own vale of Cashmere was the subject,
Sketched by its own Abdalh, i !
He, || too, of thine own land, who long since found
A refuge in his final sanctuary,
From regal bigotry — could thy voice reach him, •
His awful shade might greet thee as a brother
In sentiment and song ; that epic genius,
From whom the sight of outward things was taken
By Heaven in mercy — that the orb of vision
Might totally turn inward — there concentred
On objects else perhaps invisible,
Requiring and exhausting all its rays;
Who (like Tiresias, of prophetic fame)
Talked with Futurity ! — that patriot poet,
Poet of paradise, whose daring eve
Explored "the living throne, the sapphire blaze,"
" But blasted with excess of light," retired,
And left to thce to compass other heavens
And other scenes of being ! —
Bard beloved
Of all who virtue love — revered by all
That genius reverence — SOUTHET ! if thou art
"Gentle as bard beseems," and if thy life
Be lovely as thy lay, thou wilt not scorn
This rustic, wreath; albeit 'twas entwined
Beyond the western waters, where I sit
And bid the \\inds that wait upon their surges,
Bear it across them to thine island-home.
Thou wilt not. scorn the simple leaves, though culled
Fiom that traduced, insulted spot of earth,
Of which thy contumelious brethren oft
Frame fables, full as monstrous in their kind
As e'er M michausen knew — with all his falsehood,
Guiltless o" all his wit! Not such art thou —
Surely thou art not, if, as Rumor tells,
Thyself in the high hour of hopeful youth
* The folK'ur of Hcnaivs
t Supposed iht: earliest founder of a philosophic school
' Sacred books of the Hindoos. || .Milton.
Had cherished nightly visions of delight,
And day-dreams of desire, that lured thee on
To see these sister states, and painted to thee
Our frowning mountains and our laughing vales
The countless beauties of our varied lakes,
The dim recesses of our endless woods,
Fit haunt for sylvan deities ; and whispered
How sweet it were in such deep solitude,
Where human foot ne'er trod, to raise thy hut,
To talk to Nature, but to think of man.
Then thou, perchance, like Scotia's darling son,
Hadst sung our Pennsylvanian villages,
Our bold Oneidas, and our tender Gertrudes,
And sung, like him, thy listeners into tears.
Such were thy early musings : other thoughts,
And happier, doubtless, have concurred to fix thee
On Britain's venerated shore ; yet still
Must that young thought be tenderly remembered,
Even as romantic minds are sometimes said
To cherish their first love — not that 'twas wisest,
But that 'twas earliest If that morning dream
Still lingers to thy noon of life, remember,
And for its own dear sake, when thou shalt hear
(As oft, alas ! thou wilt) those gossip tales,
By Jazy Ignorance or inventive Spleen,
Related of the vast, the varied country,
We proudly call our own — oh ! then refute them
By the just consciousness that still this land
Has turned no adder's ear toward thy Muse
That charms so wisely ; that whene'er her tones,
Mellowed by distance, o'er the waters come,
They meet a band of listeners — those who hear
W7ith breath-suspending eagerness, and feel
With feverish interest. Be this their praise,
And sure they '11 need no other ! Such there are,
Who, from the centre of an honest heart,
Bless thee for ministering to the purest pleasure
That man, whilst breathing earthly atmosphere,
In this minority of being, knows —
That of contemplating immortal verse,
In fit communion with immortal Truth !
THE INCOMPREHENSIBILITY OF GOD.
WHERE art thou ? — THOU ! source and support
That is or seen or felt ; thyself unseen, [of all
Unfelt, unknown — alas, unknowable !
I look abroad among thy works — the sky,
Vast, distant, glorious with its world of suns —
Life-giving earth, and ever-moving main,
And speaking winds— and ask if these are thee!
The stars that twinkle on, the eternal hills,
The restless tide's outgoing and return,
The omnipresent and deep-breathing air —
Though hailed as gods of old, and only less,
Are not the Power I seek; are thine, not thee!
I ask thee from the past : if, in the years,
Since first intelligence could search its source,
Or in some former unremembered being,
(If such, perchance, were mine), did they behold
And next interrogate Futurity, rthee 1
So fondly tenanted with better things
Than e'er experience owned — but both are muto ,
And Past and Future, vocal on all else,
ELIZA TOWNSEND.
48
So full of memories and phantasies,
Are deaf and speechless here ! Fatigued, I turn
From all vain parley with the elements, [ward
And close mine eyes, and bid the thought turn in-
From each material thing its anxious guest,
If, in the stillness of the waiting soul,
He may vouchsafe himself — Spirit to spirit !
0 Thou, at once most dreaded and desired,
Pavilioned still in darkness, wilt thou hide thee 1
What though the rash request be fraught with fate,
Nor human eye may look on thine and live 1
Welcome the penalty ! let that come now,
Which soon or late must come. For light like this
Who would not dare to die ]
Peace, my proud aim,
And hush the wish that knows not what it asks.
Await His will, who hath appointed this,
W'ith every other trial. Be that will
Done now, as ever. For thy curious search,
And unprepared solicitude to gaze
On Him — the Unrevealed — learn hence, instead,
To temper highest hope with humbleness.
Pass thy novitiate in these outer courts,
Till rent the veil, no longer separating
The Holiest of all — as erst, disclosing
A brighter disponsation ; whose results
Ineffable, interminable, tend
Even to the perfecting thyself — thy kind —
Till meet for that sublime beatitude,
By the firm promise of a voice from heaven
Pledged to the pure in heart !
ANOTHER "CASTLE IN THE AIR."
« To ME, like Phidias, were it given
To form from clay the man sublime,
And, like Prometheus, steal from heaven
The animating spark divine !"
Thus once in rhapsody you cried :
As for complexion, form, and air,
No matter what, if thought preside,
And fire and feeling mantle there.
Deep on the tablets of his mind
Be learning, science, taste, imprest ;
Let piety a refuge find
Within the foldings of his breast.
Let him have suffered much — since we,
Alas ! are early doomed to know,
A.11 human virtue we can see
Is only perfected through wo.
Purer the ensuing breeze we find
When whirlwinds first the skies deform ,
And hardier grows the mountain hind
Bleaching beneath the wintry storm.
But, above all, may Heaven impart
That talent which completes the whole —
The finest and the rarest art — •
To analyze a woman's soul.
Woman — that happy, wretched being,
Of causeless smile, of nameless sigh,
So oft whose joys unbidden spring,
So oft who weeps, she knows not why !
Her piteous griefs, her joys so gay,
All that afflicts and all that cheers ;
All her erratic fancy's play,
Her fluttering hopes, her trembling fears.
With passions chastened, not subdued,
Let dull inaction stupid reign ;
Be his the ardor of the good,
Their loftier thought and nobler aim.
Firm as the towering bird of Jove,
The mightiest shocks of life to beu* ;
Yet gentle as the captive dove,
In social suffering to share.
If such there .be, to such alone
Would I thy worth, beloved, resign ;
Secure, each bliss that time hath known
Would consummate a lot like thine.
But if this gilded human scheme
Be but the pageant of the brain.
Of such slight " stuff" as forms our " dream.
Which, waking, we must seek in vain.
Each gift of nature and of art
Still lives within thyself enshrined ;
Thine are the blossoms of the heart,
And thine the scions of the mind !
And if the matchless wreath shall blend
With foliage other than its own,
Or, destined not its sweets to lend,
Shall flourish for thyself alone —
Still cultivate the plants with care ;
From weeds, from thorns, oh keep them free
Till, ripened for a purer air,
They bloom in immortality !
AMERICAN SCENERY.
FROM A POEM ON THE DKATH OF CHARLES
BHOCKDEN BKOWX.
THOUGH Nature, with unsparing hand,
Has scattered round thy favored land ^
Those gifts that prompt the aspiring aim,
And fan the latent spark to flame :
Such awful shade of blackening woods,
Such roaring voice of giant floods,
Cliffs, which the dizzied eagles flee,
Such cataracts, tumbling to the sea,
That in this lone and wild retreat
A Collins might have fixed his scat,
Called Horror from the mountain's brow,
Or Danger from the depths below —
And then, for those of milder mood,
Heedless of forest, rock, or flood,
Gay fields, bedecked with golden grain,
Rich' orchards, bending to the plain,
Where Sydney's fairy pen had foiled,
Which Mantuan Maro's muse had hailml
Yet, midst this luxury of scone,
These varied charms, this graceful mien
Canst thou no hearts, no voices, raise,
Those charms to feel, those charms to praise
LAVINIA STODDARD.
(Born 1787-Died 1820).
LAVIXIA STONE, a daughter of Mr. Elijah
Stone, was born in Guilford, Connecticut,
on the twenty-ninth of June, 1787. While
she was an infant her father removed to Pat-
erson, in New Jersey, and here she received,
besides the careful instructions of an intelli
gent and judicious mother, such education
in the schools as was at the time common to
the children of farmers. In 1811 she was
married to Dr. William Stoddard, a man of
taste and liberal culture, of Stratford, in
Connecticut, and in the then flourishing vil
lage of Troy, on the Hudson, they established
an academy, which they conducted success
fully for several years. Mrs. Stoddard was
attacked with consumption, and about the
year 1S18 she removed with her family to
Blakeley, in Alabama, where Dr. Stoddard
soon after died, leaving her among strangers
and in poverty. Partially recovering her
own health, she revisited Troy ; but the se
verity of the climate induced her to return to
Blakeley, where she died in 1820.
Mrs. Stoddard wrote many poems, which
were printed anonymously in the public jour
nals, or addressed privately to her acquaint
ances. She was a woman of piety, benevo
lence, and an independent temper; and the
fine poem entitled The Soul's Defiance, her
brother has informed me, " was interesting
to her immediate friends for the truthfulness
with which it portrayed her own experience
and her indomitable spirit, which never
quailed under any circumstances." This was
written in a period of suffering and with a
sense of injury. It is the last of her compo
sitions, and perhaps the best. It is worthy
of George Herbert.
THE SOUL'S DEFIANCE.
F SAID to Sorrow's awful storm,
That beat against my b east,
Ratio on — thou mnyst destroy this form,
And lay it low at rest;
But still the spirit that now brooks
Thy tempest, raging high,
Uudaunted on its fury looks,
With steadfast eye.
I said to Penury's meagre train,
Come on — your threats I brave ;
My last poor life-drop you may drain,
And crush me to the grave ;
Yet still the spirit that endures
Shall mock your force the while,
And meet each cold, cold grasp of yours
With hitter smile.
I paid to cold Neglect and Scorn,
Pass on — I heed you not ;
Yc may pursue me till my form
And being are forgot ;
Vet still the spirit, which you see
Undaunted by your wiles,
Draws from its own nobility
Its highborn smiles.
I said to Friendship's menaced blow,
Strike deep — my heart shall bear;
Thou canst but add one bitter wo
To those already there ;
Yet still the spirit that sustains
This last severe distress,
Shall smile upon its keenest pains,
And scorn redress.
I said to Death's uplifted dart,
Aim sure — oh, why delay T
Thou wilt not find a fearful heart —
A weak, reluctant prey ;
For still the spirit, firm and free,
Unruffled by this last dismay,
Wrapt in its own eternity,
Shall pass away.
SOXQ.
ASK not from me the sportive jest,
The mirthful jibe, the gay reflection ,
These social baubles fly the breast
That owns the sway of pale Dejection.
Ask not from me the changing smile,
Hope's sunny glow, Joy's glittering token,
It can not now my griefs beguile —
My soul is dark, my heart is broken !
Wit can not cheat my heart of wo,
Flattery wakes no exultation,
And Fancy's flash but serves to show
The darkness of my desolation.
By me no more in masking guise
Shall thoughtless repartee be spoken ;
My mind a hopeless ruin lies —
My soul is dark, my heart is broken !
44
HANNAH F. GOULD.
(Born 1788-Died 1865).
Miss GOULD is a native of Lancaster, in
the southern part of Vermont. Her father
was one of the small company who fought
m the first battle of the Revolution, and in
the face of all the privations and discourage
ments of that long and of.en hopeless Avar
remained in the army until it was disbanded.
In The Scar of Lexington, The Revolution
ary Soldier's Request, The Veteran and the
Child, and several other pieces, we suppose
she has referred to him ; and it is probably
but a versification of a family incident in
which an old man, relating the story of his
weary campaigns, says to a child —
" I carried my musket, as one that must be
But loosed from the hold of the dead, or the free.
And fearless I lifted my good, trusty sword,
In the hand of a mortal, the strength of the Lord."
Miss Gould's history is in a peculiar degree
and in a most honorable manner identified
with her father's. In her youth he removed
to Newburyport, near Boston, and for many
years before his death, (for the touching
poem entitled My Lost Father, in the last
volume of her writings, we presume had
reference to that went,) she was his house
keeper, his constant companion, and the
chief source of his happiness.
Miss Gould's poems are short, but they
are frequently nearly perfect in their kind.
Nearly all of them appeared originally in
annuals, magazines, and other miscellanies,
and their popularity has been shown by the
subsequent sale of several collective editions.
The first volume she published came out in
1832, the second in 1835, and the third in
1841 ; and a new edition, embracing many
new poems, is now (1848) in preparation.
Her most distinguishing characteristic is
sprightliness. Her poetical vein seldom
rises above the fanciful, but in her vivacity
there is both wit and cheerfulness. She
needs apparently but the provocation of a
wider social inspiration to become very cle
ver and apt in jcux d' esprit and epigrams,
as a few specimens which have found their
way into the journals amply indicate. It
is however in such pieces as Jack Frost,
The Pebble and the Acorn, and other effu
sions devoted to graceful details of nature,
or suggestive incidents in life, that we rec
ognise the graceful play of her muse. Often
by a dainty touch, or lively prelude, the gen
tle raillery of her sex most charmingly re
veals itself, and in this respect Miss Gould
manifests a decided individuality of genius.
Miss Gould seems as fond as JEsop or La
Fontaine of investing every thing in nature
with a human intelligence It is surprising
to see how frequently and how happily the
birds, the insects, the trees and flowers and
pebbles are made her colloquists. Her poems
could be illustrated only by some such in
genious artists as those who have recently
amused Paris with Scenes dela ViePubliqiie
et Privee des Animaux.
A NAME IN THE SAND.
ALOXE I walked the ocean strand ;
A pearly shell was in my hand :
I stooped and wrote upon the sanJ
My name — the year — the day.
As onward from the spot I passed,
One lingering look behind I cast-
A wave came rolling high and fast.
And washed my lines away.
And so, methought, 'twill shortly be
With every mark on earth from me :
A wave of dark Oblivion's sea
Will sweep across the place
Where I have trod the sandy shore
Of Time, and been to be no more,
Of me — my day — the name I bore,
To leave nor track nor trace.
And yet, with Him who counts the sands,
And holds the waters in his hands,
I know a lasting record stands,
Inscribed against my name,
Of all this mortal part has wrought ,
Ot all this thinking soul has thought .
A .d from these fleeting moments caugi»f
For glory or for shame.
45
4fi
HANNAH F. GOULD.
CHANGES ON THE DEEP.
A GALLANT ship ! and trim and tight
Across the deep she speeds away,
While mant'ed with the golden light
The sun throws hack at close of day
And who, that sees that stately ship
Her haughty stern in ocean dip,
H:i^ ever seen a prouder one
Il.'umincd hy a setting sun]
The hreath of summer, sweet and soft,
Her canvass swells, while, wide and fair,
And floating from her mast aloft,
Her flag pi ays off on gent'e air.
And, as her steady prow divides
The waters to her even sides,
She passes, like a bird, between
The peaceful deep and sky serene.
And now gray twilight's tender veil
The moon wi h shafts of silver rends;
And down on billow, deck, and sail,
Her placid lustre gently sends.
The stars, as if the arch of blue
Were pierced to let the glory through,
From their bright world look out and win
The thoughts of man to enter in.
And many a heart that's warm and true
That noble ship bears on with pride ;
While, mid the many forms, are two
Of passing beauty, side by side.
A fair young mother, standing by
Her bosom's lord, has fixed her eye,
With his, upon the blessed star
That points them to their home afar.
Their thoughts fly foi th to those, who there
Are waiting now, with joy to hail
The moment that shall grant their prayer,
And heave in sight their coming sail.
For, many a time the changeful queen
Of night has vanished, and been seen,
Since, o'er a foreign shore to roam,
They passed from that dear, native home.
The lube, that on its father's breast
Has let its little eyelids close,
The mother bears below to rest,
And sinks with it in sweet repose.
The while a sailor climbs the shroud,
And in the distance spies a cloud:
Low, like a swelling seed, it lies,
From which the towering storm shall rise.
The powers of air are now about
To muster from their hidden caves ;
The winds, unchained, come rushing out,
And into mountains heap the waves.
Upon t'.io sky tho darkness spreads!
rin- Tempest on the Ocean treads;
And yawning caverns are its track
Amid the waters wild and black.
Its ,-oice — but who shall give the sounds
Of that dread voice I— The ship is dashed
In roaring depths — and now she bounds
On high, hy foaming surges lashed.
And how is she the storm to bide ?
Its sweeping win^s are strong and wide !
The hand of man has lost control
O'er her — his work is for the soul !
She 's in a scene of Nature's war :
The \\ inds and waters are at strife ;
And both with her contending for
The brittle thread of human life
That she contains ; while sail and shroud
Have yielded, and her head is bowed.
Then who that slender thread shall keep
But He whose finger moves the deep ?
A moment — and the angry blast
Has done its work and hurried on.
With parted cables, shivered mast —
With riven sides, and anchor gone,
Behold the ship in ruin lie ;
While from the waves a piercing cry
Surmounts the tumult high and wild,
And shouts to heaven, " My child ! my child !"
The mother in the whelming surge
Lifts up her infant o'er the sea,
While lying on the awful verge
Where time unveils eternity —
And calls to Mercy, from the. skies
To come and rescue, while she dies,
The gift that, with her fleeting breath,
She offers from the gates of death.
It is a call for Heaven to hear.
Maternal fondness sends above
A voice, that in her Father's ear
Shall enter quick, for God is love.
In such a moment, hands like these
Their Maker with their offering sees ;
And for the faith of such a breast
He will the blow of death arrest !
The moon looks pale from out the cloud,
While Mercy's angel takes the form
Of him, who, mounted on the shroud,
W as first to see the coming storm.
The sailor has a ready arm
To bring relief, and cope with harm ;
Though rough his hand, and nerved with steel,
His heart is warm and quick to feel.
And see him, as he braves the frown
That sky and sea each other give !
Behold him where he plunges down,
That child and mother yet may live,
And plucks them from a closing grave !
They 're saved ! they 're saved ! the maddened
wave
Leaps foaming up, to find its prey
Snatched from its mouth and borne away.
They 're saved ! they 're saved ! but where is he,
Who lulled his fearless babe to sleep !
A floating plank on that wild sea
Has now his vital spark to keep !
But, by the wan, affrighted moon,
Help comes to him ; and he is soon
Upon the deck with living men
To clasp that smiling boy again.
HANNAH F. GOULD.
47
And now can He, who only knows
Each human breast, behold alone
What pure and grateful incense goes
From that sad wreck to his high throne.
The twain, whose hearts are truly one,
Wi 1 early teach their prattling son
Upon his little heart to bear
The sailor to his God, in prayer :
" O Thou, who in thy hand dost hold
The winds and waves, that wake or sleep,
Thy tender arms of mercy fold
Around the seamen on the deep !
And, when their voyage of life is o'er,
May they be welcomed to the shore
Whose peaceful streets with gold are paved,
And angels sing, ' They 're saved! — they're
saved !' "
THE SCAR OF LEXINGTON.
WITH cherub smile, the prattling boy,
Who on the veteran's breast reclines,
Has thrown aside his favorite toy,
And round his tender finger twines
Those scattered locks, that, with the flight
Of fourscore years, are snowy white ;
And, as a scar arrests his view,
He cries, " Grandpa, what wounded you1?"
" My child, 't is five-and-fifty years
This very day, this very hour,
Since, from a scene of blood and tears,
Where valor fell by hostile power,
I saw retire the setting sun
Behind the hills of Lexington ;
While pale and lifeless on the plain
My brothers lay, for freedom slain !
" And ere that fight, the first that spoke
In thunder to our land, was o'er,
Amid the clouds of fire and smoke,
I felt my garments wet with gore !
'Tis since that dread and wild affray,
That trying, dark, eventful day,
From this calm April eve so far,
I wear upon my cheek the scar.
" When thou to manhood shalt be grown,
And I am gone in dust to sleep,
May freedom's rights be still thine own,
And thou and thine in quiet reap
The unb'.ighted product of the toil
In which my blood bedewed the soil !
And, while those fruits thou shalt enjoy,
Bethink thee of this scar, my boy.
" But, should thy country's voice be heard
To bid her children fly to arms,
Gird on thy grandsire's trusty sword :
And, undismayed by war's alarms,
Remember, on the battle field,
I made the hand of GOD my shield:
And be thou spared, like me, to tell
What bore thee up, while others fell !"
THE SNOWFLAKE.
" Now, if I fall, will it be my lot
To be cast in some lone and lowly spot,
To melt, and to sink unseen, or forgot ?
And there will my course be ended 1"
'T was this a feathery Snowflake said,
As down through measureless space it strayed,
Or as, half by dalliance, half afraid,
It seemed in mid air suspended.
" Oh, no !" said the Earth, " thou shalt not lie
Neglected and lone on my lap to die,
Thou pure and delicate child of the sky !
For thou wilt be safe in my keeping.
But, then, I must give thee a lovelier form —
Thou wilt not be a part of the wintry storm,
But revive, when the sunbeams are yellow and
warm,
And the flowers from my bosom are peeping !
" And then thou shalt have thy choice, to be
Restored in the lily that decks the lea,
In the jessamine bloom, the anemone,
Or aught of thy spotless whiteness-,
To melt, and be cast in a glittering bead
With the pearls that the night scatters over the
mead,
In the cup where the bee and the firefly feed,
Regaining thy dazzling brightness.
"I'll let thee awake from thy transient sleep,
When Viola's mild blue eye shall weep,
In a tremulous tear ; or, a diamond, leap
In a drop from the unlocked fountain ;
Or, leaving the valley, the meadow, and heath,
The streamlet, the flowers, and all beneath,
Go up and be wove in the silvery wreath
Encircling the brow of the mountain.
" Or wouldst thou return to a home in the skies,
To shine in the Iris I '11 let thee arise,
And appear in the many and glorious dyes
A pencil of sunbeams is blending !
But true, fair thing, as my name is Earth,
I '11 give thee a new and vernal birth,
When thou shalt recover thy primal worth,
And never regret descending !"
« Then I will drop," said the trusting Flake ,
" But, bear it in mind, that the choice I make
Is not in the flowers nor the dew to wake ;
Nor the mist, that shall pass with the morning
For, things of thyself, they will die with thee ;
But those that are lent from on high, like me,
Must rise, and will live, from thy dust set free,
To the regions at^ve returning.
" And if true to thy word and just thou art.
Like the spirit that dwells in the holiest heart.
Unsullied by thee, thou wilt let me depart,
And return to my native heaven.
For I would be placed in the beautiful bow
From time to time, in thy sight to glow ;
So thou mayst remember the Flake of Snow
By the promise that GOD hath (riven !"
HANNAH F. GOULD.
THE WINDS.
WK come ! we come ! and ye feel our might,
As we're hastening on in our boundless flight,
And over the mountains and over the deep
Our broad, invisible pinions sweep,
Like the spirit of Liberty, wild and free !
And ye look on our works, and own 'tis we;
Ye call us the Winds: but can ye tell
Whither we go, or where we dwell 1
Ye mark, as we vary our forms of power,
And fell the forests, or fan the flower,
When the harebell moves, and the rush is bent,
When the tower's o'erthrown, and the oak is rent
As we wait the bark o'er the slumbering wave,
Or hurry its crew to a watery grave ;
And ye say it is we ! — but can ye trace
The wandering winds to their secret place 1
And, whether our breath be loud or high,
Or come in a soft and balmy sigh,
Our tlireatenings fill the soul with fear,
Or our gent'e whisperings woo the ear
With music aerial, still 'tis we.
And ye list and ye look ; but what do ye see ?
Can ye hush one sound of our voice to peace,
Or waken one note when our numbers cease ]
04ur dwelling is in the Almighty's hand ;
We come and we go at his command.
Though joy or sorrow may mark our track,
His will is our guide, and we look not back:
And if, in our wrath ye would turn us away,
Or win us in gentle airs to play,
Then lift up your hearts to Him who binds
Or frees, as he will, the obedient winds.
THE FROST.
THE Frost looked forth one still, clear night,
And whispered, "Now I shall be out of sight:
So, through the valley, and over the height,
In silence I'll take my way.
I will not go on like that blustering train —
The wind and the snow, the hail and the rain—
Who make s > much bustle and noise in vain;
But I'll be as busy as they."
Then he lli-w to the mountain and powder'd its crest;
He lit on the trees, and their boughs he drest
In diamond heads; and over the breast
Of the (]uivering lake he spread
A coat of mail, that it need not fear
The downward point of many a spear
That he hung on its margin, far and near,
Where a rock could rear its head.
He went to the windows of those who slept,
And over e:ieh pane, like a fairy, crept;
\Vherev.-r he breathed, wherever he slept,
By the light of the morn, were seen
Mos*t beautiful things: there were flowers and trees;
There weie bevies of birds, and swarms of bees;
There were cities, with temples and towers — and
All pictured in silver sheen ! [these
But he did one thing that was hardly fair:
He peeped in the cupboard, and finding there
That all had forgotten for him to prepare —
" Now, just to set them a-thinking,
I'll bite this basket of fruit," said he,
" This costly pitcher I '11 burst in three ;
And the glass of water they 've left for me
Shall ' tchick !' to tell them I'm drinking."
THE WATERFALL.
YE mighty waters, that have joined your forces,
.Roaring and dashing with this awful sound,
Here are ye mingled ; but the distant sources
Whence ye have issued — where shall they be
found ]
Who may retrace the ways that ye have taken,
Ye streams and drops ] who separate you all,
And find the many places ye 've forsaken,
To come and rush together down the fall 1
Through thousand, thousand paths have ye been
roaming,
In earth and air, who now each other urge
To the last point ! and then, so madly foaming,
Leap down at once from this stupendous verge
Some in the lowering cloud a while were centred.
That in the stream beheld its sable face,
And melted into tears, that, falling, entered
With sister waters on this sudden race-
Others, to light that beamed upon the fountain,
Have from the vitals of the rock been freed,
In silver threads, that, shining down the mountain,
Twined off among the verdure of the mead.
And many a flower that bowed beside the river,
In opening beauty, ere the dew was dried,
Stirred by the breeze, has been an early giver
Of her pure offering to the rolling tide.
Thus, from the veins, through earth's dark bosom
pouring,
Many have flowed in tributary streams ;
Some, in the bow that bent, the sun adoring,
Have shone in colors borrowed from his beams.
But He, who holds the ocean in the hollow
Of his strong hand, can separate you all !
His searching eye the secret way will follow
Of every drop that hurries to the fall !
We are, like you, in mighty torrents mingled,
_ And speeding downward to one common home ;
Yet there 's an Eye that every drop hath singled,
And marked the winding ways through which
we come.
Those who have here adored the Sun of heaven,
And shown the world their brightness drawn
from him,
Again before him, though their hues be seven,
Shall blend their beauty, never to grow dim
We bless the promise, as we thus are tending
Down to the tomb, that gives us hope to rise
Before the Power to whom we now are bending,
To stand his bow of glory in the skies !
HANNAH F. GOULD.
THE MOON UPON THE SPIRE.
THE full orbed moon has reached no higher
Than yon old church's mossy spire,
And seems, as gliding up the air,
She saw the fane ; and, pausing there,
Would worship, in the tranquil night,
The Prince of Peace — the Source of light,
Where man for GOD prepared the place,
And GOD to man unveils his face.
Her tribute all around is seen ;
She bends, and worships like a queen !
Her robe of light and beaming crown
In silence she is casting down ;
And, as a creature of the earth,
She feels her lowliness of birth —
Her weakness and inconstancy
Before unchanging purity !
Pale traveller, on thy lonely way,
'Tis well thine homage thus to pay;
To reverence that ancient pile,
And spread thy silver o'er the aisle
Which many a pious foot has trod,
That now is dust beneath the sod ;
Where many a sacred tear was wept
From eyes that long in death have slept !
The temple's builders — where are they ]
The worshippers] — a'l passed away,
WTho came the first, to offer there
The song of praise, the heart of prayer !
Man's generation passes soon ;
It wanes and changes like the moon.
He raises the perishable wall,
But, ere it crumbles, he must fall !
And does he sink to rise no more 1
Has he no part to triumph o'er
The pallid king? no spark, to save
From darkness, ashes, and the grave 1
Thou holy place, the answer, wrought
In thy firm structure, bars the thought !
The Spirit that established thee
Nor death nor darkness e'er shall see !
THE ROBE.
'T WAS not the robe of state
Which the high and the haughty wear,
That my busy hand, as the lamp burned late,
Was hastening to prepare.
It had no clasp of gold,
No diamond's dazzling blaze,
For the festive board ; nor the graceful fold
To float in the dance's maze.
'Twas not to wrap the breast
With gladness light and warm ;
For the bride's attire — for the joyous guest,
Nor to clothe the sufferer's form.
'Twas not the garb of wo
We wear o'er an aching heart,
When our eyes with bitter tears o'erflow,
And our dearest ones depart.
4
'T was what we all must bear
To the cold, the lonely bed !
'Twas the spotless uniform they wear
In the chambers of the dead !
I saw the fair young maid
In the snowy vesture drest ;
So pure, she looked as one arrayed
For the mansions of the blest.
A smile had left its trace
On her lip at the parting breath,
And the beauty in that lovely face
Was fixed with the seal of death !
THE CONSIGNMENT.
FIRE, my hand is on the key,
And the cabinet must ope !
I shall now consign to thee
Things of grief, of joy, of hope.
Treasured secrets of the heart
To thy care I hence intrust :
Not a word must thou impart,
But reduce them all to dust.
This — in childhood's rosy morn,
This was gayly filled and sent.
Childhood is for ever gone :
Here, devouring element !
This was Friendship's cherished pledsre .
Friendship took a colder form :
Creeping on its gilded edge,
May the blaz'e be bright and warm !
These — the letter and the token,
Never more shall meet my view !
When the faith has once been broken,
Let the memory perish too !
This — 'twas penned while purest joy
Warmed the heart, and lit the eye .
Fate that peace did soon destroy,
And its transcript now will I !
This must go ! for, on the seal
When I broke the solemn yew,
Keener was the pang than steel ;
'T was a heart string breaking, too I
Here comes up the blotted leaf,
Blistered o'er by many a tear.
Hence ! thou waking shade of grief (
Go, for ever disappear !
This is his, who seemed to be
High as heaven, and fair as light :
But the visor rose, and he — •
Spare, 0 Memory, spare the sight
Of the face that frowned beneath
While I take it, hand and name,
And entwine it with a wreath
Of the purifying flame !
These — the hand is in the grave,
And the soul is in the skies,
Whence they came. . Tis pain to savu
Cold remains of sundered tie? !
Go together, all, and burn,
Once the treasures of my heart !
Still, my breast shall be an urn
To preserve your better part!
DO
HANNAH F. GOULD.
THE WINTER BURIAL.
THE deep toned bell peals long and low
On the keen, midwinter air;
A sorrowing train moves sad and slow
From the solemn place of prayer.
The earth is in a winding sheet,
And nature wrapped in gloom;
Cold, cold the path which the mourners' feet
Pursue to the waiting tomb.
They follow one who calmly goes
From her own loved mansion door,
Nor shrinks from the way through gathered snows,
To return to her home no more.
A sable line, to the drift crowned h:i'.
The narrow pass they wind ;
And here, where all is drear and chill,
Their friend they leave behind.
The silent grave they 're bending o'er,
A long farewell to take ;
One last, last look, and then, no more
Ti.l the dead shall all awake !
THE PEBBLE AND THE ACORN.
" I AM a Pebble ! and yield to none !"
Were the swelling words of a tiny stone —
" Nor time nor seasons can alter me ;
f am abiding, while ages flee.
The pelting hail and the drizzling rain
Have tried to soften me, long, in vain ;
And the tender dew has sought to melt
Or touch my heart ; but it was not felt.
There's none that can tell about my birth,
For I'm as old as the big, round earth.
The chi dren of men arise, and pass
Out of the world, like the blades of grass ;
And many a foot on me has trod,
That's gone from sight, and under the sod.
I am a Pebble ! but who art thou,
Rattling along from the restless bough 1"
The Acorn was shocked at this rude salute,
And lay for a moment abashed and mute;
She never before had been so near
This uravelly ball, the mundane sphere;
And she felt for a time at a loss to know
How to answer a thing so coarse and low.
But to »ive reproof of a nobler sort
Than the angry look, or the keen retort,
At lenirth she s;iid, in a gentle tone,
" Since it is happened that I am thrown
Fro n the lighter element whore I grew,
Down to another so hard and new,
And hcside a personage so august,
Abased, I will cover my head with dust,
And quickly retire from the sight of one
Whom time, nor season, nor storm, nor sun,
Nor Me gentle dew, nor the grinding heel,
Has ever subdued, or made to feel !"
And soon in the earth she sank away
From the comfortless spot where the Pebble lay.
But it was not long ere the soil was broke
Bv ».h/r peering head of an infant oak!
And, as it arose, and its branches spread,
The Pebble looked up, and, wondering, said,
" A modest Acorn — never to tell
What was enclosed in its simple shell '
That the pride of the forest was fo'ded up
In the narrow space of its little cup !
And meekly to sink in the darksome earth,
Which proves that nothing could hide her worth
And, oh ! how many will tread on me,
To come and admire the beautiful tree,
Whose head is towering toward the sky,
Above such a worthless thing as I !
Useless and vain, a cumberer here,
I have been idling from year to year.
But never from this, shall a vaunting woid
From the humbled Pebble again be heard,
Till something without me or within
Shall show the purpose for which I've been'"
The Pebble its vow could not forget,
And it lies there wrapped in silence yet.
THE SHIP IS READY.
FARE thee well ! the ship is ready,
And the breeze is fresh and steady.
Hands are fast the anchor weighing;
High in air the streamer's playing.
Spread the sails — the waves are swelling
Proudly round thy buoyant dwelling.
Fare thee well ! and when at sea,
Think of those who sigh for thee.
When from land and home receding,
And from hearts that ache to bleeding,
Think of those behind, who love thee,
While the sun is bright above thee !
Then, as, down to ocean glancing,
In the waves his rays are dancing,
Think how long the night will be
To the eyes that weep for thee !
When the lonely night watch keeping
All below thee still and sleeping —
As the needle points the quarter
O'er the wide and trackless water,
Let thy vigils ever find thee
Mindful of the friends behind thee !
Let thy bosom's magnet be
Turned to those who wake for thee !
When, with slow and gentle motion
Heaves the bosom of the ocean —
While in peace thy bark is riding,
And the silver moon is gliding
O'er the sky with tranquil splendor,
Where the shining hosts attend her:
Let the brightest visions be
Country, home, and friends, to thee !
When the tempest hovers o'er thee,
Danger, wreck, and death, before thee,
While the sword of fire is gleaming.
Wild the winds, the torrent streaming,
Then, a pious ?uppliant bending,
Let thy thoughts, to Heaven ascending,
Reach the mercy scat, to be
Met by prayers that rise for thee !
HANNAH F. GOULD.
51
THE CHILD ON THE BEACH.
MAHY, a beautiful, artless child,
Came down on the beach to me,
Where I sat, and a pensive hour beguiled
By watching the restless sea.
never had seen her face before,
And mine was to her unknown ;
But we each rejoiced on that peaceful shore
The other to meet alone.
Her cheek was the rose's opening bud,
Her brow of an ivory white ;
Her eyes were bright as the stars that stud
The sky of a cloudless night.
To reach my side as she gayly sped,
With the step of a bounding fawn,
The pebbles scarce moved beneath her tread,
Ere the little light foot was gone.
With the love of a holier world than this
Her innocent heart seemed warm ;
While the glad young spirit looked out with bliss
From its shrine in her sylphlike form.
Her soul seemed spreading the scene to span
That opened before her view,
And longing for power to look the plan
Of the universe fairly through.
She climbed and stood on the rocky steep,
Like a bird that would mount and fly
Far over the waves, where the broad, blue deep
Rolled up to the bending sky.
She placed her lips to the spiral shell,
And breathed through every fold ;
She looked for the depth of its pearly cell,
As a miser would look for gold.
Her small, white fingers were spread to toss
The foam, as it reached the strand :
She ran them along in the purple moss,
And over the sparkling sand.
The green sea egg, by its tenant left,
And formed to an ocean cup,
She he'.d by its sides, of their spears bereft,
To fill, as the waves rolled up.
But the hour went round, and she knew the space
Her mother's soft word assigned ;
While she seemed to look with a saddening face
On all she must leave behind.
She searched mid the pebbles, and, finding one
Smooth, clear, and of amber dye,
She held it up to the morning sun,
And over her own mild eye.
Then, " Here," said she, " I will give you this,
That you may remember me !"
And she sealed her gift with a parting kiss,
And fled from beside the sea.
Mary, thy token is by me yet :
To me 'tis a dearer gem
Than ever was brought from the mine, or set
In the loftiest diadem.
It carries me back to the far off deep,
And places me on the shore,
Where the beauteous child, who bade me keep
Her pebble, 1 meet once more.
And all that is lovely, pure, and bright,
In a soul that is young, and free
From the stain of guile, and the deadly blight
Of sorrow, I find in thee.
I wonder if ever thy tender heart
In memory meets me there,
WThere thy soft, quick sigh, as we had to part,
WTas caught by the ocean air.
Blest one ! over Time's rude shore, on thee
May an angel guard attend,
And " a white stone bearing a new name," be
Thy passport when time shall end !
THE MIDNIGHT MAIL.
'Tis midnight — all is peace profound!
But, lo ! upon the murmuring ground,
The lonely, swelling, hurrying sound
Of distant wheels is heard !
They come — they pause a moment — when.
Their charge resigned, they start, and then
Are gone, and all is hushed again,
As not a leaf had stirred.
Hast thou a parent far away,
A beauteous child, to be thy stay
In life's decline — or sisters, they
Who shared thine infant glee ]
A brother on a foreign shore 1
Is he whose breast thy token bore,
Or are thy treasures wandering o'er
A wide, tumultuous seal
If aught like these, then thou must feel
The rattling of that reckless wheel,
That brings the bright or boding seal
On every trembling thread
That strings thy heart, till morn appears,
To crown thy hopes, or end thy fears,
To light thy smile, or draw thy tears,
As line on line is read.
Perhaps thy treasure 's in the deep,
Thy lover in a dreamless sleep,
Thy brother where thou canst not weep
Upon his distant grave !
Thy parent's hoary head no more
May shed a silver lustre o'er
His children grouped — nor death restore
Thy son from out the wave !
Thy prattler's tongue, perhaps, is stilled.
Thy sister's lip is pale and chilled,
Thy blooming bride, perchance, has filled
Her corner of the tomb.
May be, the home where all thy sweet
And tender recollections meet,
Has shown its flaming winding-sheet
In midnight's awful gloom !
And while, alternate, o'er my soul
Those cold or burning wheels will roll
Their ohill or heat, beyond control.
Till morn shall bring relief —
Father in heaven, whate'er may be
The cup which thou hast sent for me,
I know 'tis good, prepare! by thee.
Though filled with joy '>r e.ri-A'*
CAROLINE OILMAN.
(Born 1794).
CAROLINE HOWARD was born in Boston, in
1794, and in 1819 was married to the Rev.
Samuel Oilman, one of the most accom
plished scholars of the Unitarian church,
who is known as an author by his very clever
work entitled Memoirs of a New England
Yjllage Choir, and by numerous elegant pa
pers in the reviews. Soon ai'er their mar
riage they removed to Charleston, South Car
olina, where Dr. Gil man has ever since been
actively engaged in the duties of his pro
fession.
Mrs. Oilman is best known as a writer of
prose, and her works will long be valued for
the spirit and fidelity with which she has
painted rural and domestic life in the north
ern and in the southern states. Her Recol
lections of a New England Housekeeper,
and Recollections of a Southern Matron, are
equally happy, and both show habits of mi
nute observation, skill in character-writing,
and an artist-like power of grouping; they
are also pervaded by a genial tone, and a love
of nature, and good sense. Her other works
are, Love's Progress, a Tale ; The Poetry of
| Travelling in the United States ; Tales and
Ballads; Stories and Poems for Children;
and Verses of a Lifetime. She edited for
several years, in Charleston, a literary ga
zette called The Southern Rose ; published a
collection of the Letters of Eliza Wilkinson,
a heroine of the Revolution ; and illustrated
the extent of her reading in poetical liter
ature, by two ingenious volumes, entitled
Oracles from the Poets, and The Sybil.
The poems of Mrs. Oilman are nearly
all contained in Verses of a Lifetime, just
issued (at the close of the year 1848) by
James Munroe & Company, of Boston. They
abound in expressions of wise, womanly feel
ing, and are frequently marked by a graceful
elegance of manner.
ROSALIE.
'T^is fearful to watch by a dying friend,
Though luxury glistens null;
Though the pillow of down be softly spread
Where the throbbing temples lie—
Though the loom's pure fabric enfold the form,
^ Though the shadowy curtains flow,
Though the feet on sumptuous carpets tread
As " lightly as snow on snow"
Though the perfumed air as a garden teems
With flowers of healthy bloom,
And the feathery fan just stirs the breeze
In the cool and guarded room
Though the costly cup for the fevered lip
With grateful cordial flows,
While the watching eye and the warning hand
1 reserve the snatched repose.
Yes, even with these appliances,
^Fmin wealth's unmeasured store,
Tii fearful to watch the spirit's flight
To its dim and distant shore.
But oh, when the f,,r.n that we love is laid
On Poverty's chilly bed,
When roughly the blast to the shivering limbs
I urough crevice and pane is sped—
Whon the noonday sun comes streaming in
Un HIP dun or burning eye,
And the heartless laugh and the worldly tread
Is heard from the passers by
When the sickly lip for a pleasant draught
To us in vain upturns,
And the aching head on a pillow hard
In restless fever burns
When night rolls on, and we gaze in wo
On the candle's lessening ray,
And grope about in the midnight gloom,
And long for the breaking day—
Or bless the moon as her silver torch
Sheds light on our doubtful hand,
When pouring the drug which a moment wresta
1 he soul from the spirit-land
When we know that sickness of soul and heart
W nich sensitive bosoms feel
When helpless, hopeless, we needs must gaze
Un woes we can not heal :
This, this is the crown of bitterness !
And we pray, as the loved one dies,
That our breath may pass with their waning pulse,
And with theirs close our aching eyes.
My story tells of sweet Rosalie,
Once a maiden of joy and delight,
A ray of love, from her girlish days,
To her parents' devoted sight.
52
CAROLINE OILMAN.
The girl was free as the river wave
That dances to ocean's rest,
And life looked down like a summer's sun
On her pure and gentle breast.
She saw young Arthur — their happy hearts
Like two young streamlets shone,
That leap along on their mountain path,
Then mingle their waters as one.
They parted : he roved to western wilds
To seek for his bird a nest,
And Rosalie dwelt in her father's halls,
And folded her wings to rest.
But her father died, and a fearful blight
O'er his child and his widow fell —
They sunk from that day in the gloomy abys.?
Where sorrow and poverty dwell.
Consumption came, and he whispered low
To the widow of early death ;
He hastened the beat of her constant pulse,
And baffled the coming breath.
He preyed on the bloom of her still soft cheek,
And shrivelled her hand of snow ;
He checked her step in its easy glide,
And her eye beamed a restless glow.
He choked her voice in its morning song,
And stifled its evening lay,
And husky and coarse rose her midnight hymn
As she lay on her pillow to pray.
Poor Rosalie rose by the dawning light,
And sat by the midnight oil ;
But the pittance was fearfully small that came
By her morning and evening toil.
'T was then in her lodging the night-wind came
Through crevice and broken pane ;
'Twas there that the early sunbeam burst
With its glaring and burning train.
When Rosalie sat by her mother's side,
She smothered her heart's affright,
And essayed to smile, though the monster Want
Stood haggard and wan in her sight.
She pressed her feet on the cold damp floor,
And crushed her hands on her heart,
Or stood like a statue so still and pale,
Lest a tear or a cry should start.
Her household goods went one by one
To purchase their scanty fare;
And even the little mirror was sold
Where she parted her glossy hair.
Then hunger glared in her full blue eye,
And was heard in her tremulous tone;
And she longed for the crust that the beggar eats,
As he sits by the wayside stone.
The neighbors gave of their scanty store,
But their jealous children scowled ;
And the eager dog, that guarded the street,
Looked on the morsel and howled.
Then her mother died — 'twas a blessed thing J
For the last faint embers had gone
On the chilly hearth, and the candle was out
As Rosalie watched for the dawn.
'Twas a blessed exchange from thisdark,co'.d earth
To those bright and blossoming bowers,
Where the spirit roves in its robes of light
And gathers immortal flowers !
Poor Rosalie lay on her mother's breast,
Though its fluttering breath was o'er.
And eagerly pressed her passive hand.
Which returned the pressure no more.
In darkness she closed the fixing eyes,
And saw not the deathly glare —
Then straightened the warm and flaccid limbs
With a wild and fearful care.
And ere the dawn of the morrow broke
On the night that her mother died,
Poor Rosalie sank from her long, long watch,
In sleep by her mother's side.
'T was a sorrowful sight for the neighbors to see,
(When they woke from their kindlier rest,)
The beautiful girl, with her innocent face,
Asleep on the corpse's breast.
Her hair flowed about by her mother's side,
And her hand on the dead hand fell ;
Yet her breathing was light as the lily's roll,
When waved by the ripple's swell.
There was surely a vision of heaven's delight
Haunting her exquisite rest,
For she smiled in her sleep such a heavenly smile
As could only beam out from the blest.
'T was fearful as beautiful : and as they gazed,
The neighbors stood whispering low, [dead,
Nor dared they remove her white arm from the
Where it seemed in its fondness to grow.
Life is not always a darkling dream :
God loves our sad waking to bless —
More brightly, perchance, for the dreary shade
That heralds our happiness.
A stranger stands by that humble door,
A youth in the flush of life,
And sudden hope in his thoughtful glance
Seems with sorrow and care at strife.
Manly beauty and soul-formed grace
Stand forth in each movement fair,
And speak in the turn of his well-timed step,
And shine in his wavy hair.
With travel and watchfulness worn was he,
Yet there beamed on his open brow
Traces of faith and integrity,
Where conscience had stamped her vow.
'T was Arthur : he gazed on those two pale forms,
Soon one was clasped to his heart ;
In piercing accents he called her name —
That voice made the life-blood start !
Not on the dead doth she ope her eves —
Life, love, spread their living wings ;
And she rests on her lover's breast as a child
To its nursing mother clings.
A pure white tomb in the near graveyard
Betokens the widow's rest,
But Arthur has gone to his for»«t-home,
And shelters his dove in his nebt.
CAROLINE OILMAN.
THE PLANTATION.
FAUKWKLL, awhile, the city's hum,
Where busy footsteps fall,
And welcome fo inv \ve:irv eye
The planter's friendly hall.
Here let me rise at early dawn,
And list the mockbird's lay,
That, warbling ii(>ar our lowland home,
Sits on the waving spray.
Then tread 'the shading avenue
Beneath tin- cedar's ulooin,
Or gum tree, with its flickered shade,
Or chinq uapen's perfume.
The myrtle tree, the orange wild,
The cypress' flexile bough,
The holly with its polished leaves,
Are all before me now.
There, towering with imperial pride,
The rich magnolia stands,
And here, in softer loveliness,
The white-bloomed bay expands.
The long gray moss hangs gracefully,
Idly I twine its wreaths,
Or stop to catch the fragrant air
The frequent blossom breathes.
Life wakes around — the red bird darts
Like flame from tree to tree ;
The whip-poor-will complains alone,
The robin whistles free.
The frightened hare scuds by my path,
And seeks the thicket nigh ;
The squirrel climbs the hickory bough,
Thence peeps with careful eye.
The hummingbird, with busy wing,
In rainbow beauty moves,
Above the trumpet-blossom floats,
And sips the tube he loves.
Triumphant to yon withered pine
The soaring eagle flies,
There builds her eyrv mid the clouds,
And man and heaven defies.
The hunter's bugle echoes near,
And see — his weary train,
With mingled bowlings, scent the woods
Or scour the open plain.
Yon skiff is darting from the cove,
And list the negro's song —
The theme, his owner and his boat —
While glide the crew along.
And when the leading voice is lost,
Receding from the shore,
His brother boatmen swell the strain,
In chorus with the oar.
There stands the dairy on the stream,
Within the broad oak's shade;
The white pails glitter in the sun,
In rustic pomp arrayed.
ADI! she stands smiling at the door,
Who "minds" that titilki/ way —
She smooths her apron as I pass,
And loves the praise I pay.
Welcome to me her sable hands,
When in the noontide heat,
Within the polished calibash,
She pours the pearly treat.
The poulterer's feathered, tender charge,
Feed on the grassy plain ;
Her Afric brow lights up with smiles,
Proud of her noisy train.
Nor does the herdman view his flock
With unadmiring gaze,
Significant are all their names,
Won by their varying ways.
Forth from the negroes' humble huts
The laborers now have gone ;
But some remain, diseased and old —
Do they repine alone 1
Ah, no : the nurse, with practised skill,
That sometimes shames the wise,
Prepares the herb of potent power,
And healing aid applies.
On sunny banks the children play,
Or wind the fisher's line,
Or, with the dexterous fancy braid,
The willow baskets twine.
Long ere the sloping sun departs
The laborers quit the field,
And, housed within their sheltering huts
To careless quiet yield.
But see yon wild and lurid clouds,
That rush in contact strong,
And hear the thunder, peal on peal,
Reverberate along.
The cattle stand and mutely gaze,
The birds instinctive fly,
While forked flashes rend the air,
And light the troubled sky.
Behold yon sturdy forest pine,
Whose green top points to heaven —
A flash ! its firm, encasing bark
By that red shock is riven.
But we, the children of the South,
Shrink not with trembling fears ;
The storm, familiar to our youth,
Will spare our ripened years.
We know its fresh, reviving charm,
And, like the flower and bird,
Our looks and voices, in each pause,
With grateful joy are stirred.
And now the tender rice upshoots,
Fresh in its hue of green,
Spreading its emerald carpet far,
Beneath the sunny sheen ;
Though when the softer, ripened hue
Of autumn's changes rise,
The rustling spires instinctive lift
Their gold seeds to the skies.
There the young cotton-plant unfolds
Its leaves of sickly hue,
CAROLINE OILMAN.
But soon advancing to its growth,
Looks up with beauty too.
And, as midsummer suns prevail,
Upon its blossoms glow
Commingling hues, like sunset rays —
Then bursts its sheeted snow.
How shall we fly this lovely spot,
Where rural joys prevail —
The social board, the eager chase,
Gay dance, and rnerry tale 1
Alas ! our youth must leave their sports,
When spring-time ushers May ;
Our maidens quit the planted flower,
Just blushing into day —
Or, all beneath yon rural mound,
Where rest th' ancestral dead,
By mourning friends, with severed hearts,
Unconscious w^ill be led.
Oh, southern summer, false and fair !
Why, from thy loaded wing,
Blent with rich flowers and fruitage rare,
The seeds of sorrow fling 1
MUSIC ON THE CANAL.
I WAS weary with the daylight,
I was weary with the shade,
And my heart became still sadder
As the stars their light betrayed ;
I sickened at the ripple,
As the lazy boat went on,
And felt as though a friend was lost,
When the twilight ray was gone.
The meadows, in a firefly glow,
Looked gay to happy eyes :
To me they beamed but mournfully,
My heart was cold with sighs.
They seemed, indeed, like summer friends-
Alas ! no warmth had they ;
I turned in sorrow from their glare,
Impatient turned away.
And tear-drops gathered in my eyes,
And rolled upon my cheek,
And when the voice of mirth was heard,
I had no heart to speak :
I longed to press my children
To my sad and homesick breast,
And feel the constant hand of love
Caressing and caressed.
And slowly went my languid pulse,
As the slow canal-boat goes,
And I felt the pain of weariness,
And sighed for home's repose ;
And laughter seemed a mockery,
And joy a fleeting breath,
And life a dark, volcanic crust,
That crumbles over death.
But a strain of sweetest melody
Arose upon my ear,
The blessed sound of woman's voice^,
That angels love to hear !
And manly strains of tenderness
Were mingled with the song —
A father's with his daughter's notes,
The gentle with the strong.
And my thoughts began to soften,
Like snows when waters fall,
And open as the frost-closed buds,
When spring's young breezes call ;
While to my faint and weary soul
A better hope was given,
And all once more was bright with faith,
'Twixt heart, and earth, and Heaven.
THE CONGRESSIONAL BURYIXG-GROUND
THE pomp of death was there —
The lettered urn, the classic marble rose,
And coldly, in magnificent repose,
Stood out the column fair.
The hand of art was seen
Throwing the wild flowers from the gravelled walk,
The sweet wild flowers, that hold their quiet talk
Upon the uncultured green.
And now perchance, a bird,
Hiding amid the trained and scattered trees,
Sent forth his carol on the scentless breeze —
But they were few I heard.
Did my heart's pulses beat ]
And did mine eye o'erflow with sudden tears,
Such as gush up mid memories of years,
When humbler graves we meet 1
An humbler grave I met,
On the Potomac's leafy banks, when May,
Weaving spring flowers, stood out in colors gay,
With her young coronet :
A lonely, nameless grave,
Stretching its length beneath th' o'erarching trees,
Which told a plaintive story, as the breeze
Came their new buds to wave.
But the lone turf was green
As that which gathers o'er more honored forms ;
Nor with more harshness had the wintry stonns
Swept o'er that woodland scene.
The flower and springing blade
Looked upward with their young and shining i-yes,
And met the sunlight of the happy skies,
And that low turf arrayed.
And unchecked birds sang out
The chorus of their spring-time jubilee
And gentle happiness it was to me,
To list their music-shout.
And to that stranger-grave
The tribute of enkindling thoughts — the free
And unbought power of natural sympathy
Passing, I sadly gave.
And a religious spell
On that lone mound, by man deserted, rose—
A conscious presence from on high, which glows
Not where the worldly dwell.
56
CAROLINE OILMAN.
TO THE URSUL1NE3.
OH, pure and gentle ones, within your ark
Securely rest !
Blue be the sky above — your quiet bark
By soft winds blest !
Still toil in duty, and commune with Heaven,
World-weaned and free ;
God to his humblest creatures room has given
And space to be.
Space for the eagle in the vaulted sky
To plume his wing —
Space for the ringdove by her young to lie,
And softly sing.
Space for the sunflower, bright with yellow glow,
To court the sky —
Space for the violet, where the wild woods grow,
To live and die.
Space for the ocean, in its giant might,
To swell and rave —
Space for the river, tinged with rosy light,
Where green banks wave.
Space for the sun to tread his path in might
And golden pride —
Space for the glow-worm, calling, by her light,
Love to her side.
Then, pure and gentle ones, within your ark
Securely rest !
Blue be the skies above, and your still bark
By kind winds blest.
RETURN TO MASSACHUSETTS.
THE martin's nest — the simple nest !
I see it swinging high,
Just as it stood in distant years,
Above my gazing eye ;
But many a bird has plumed its wing,
And lightly flown away,
Or drooped his little head in death,
Since that — my youthful day !
The woodland stream — the pebbly stream !
It gayly flows along,
As once it did when by its side
I sang my merry sonu::
But many a wave has rolled afar,
Beneath the summer cloud,
Since by its bank I idly poured
My childish song aloud.
The sweet-brier rose — the wayside rose,
Still spreads its fragrant arms,
Where graciously lo passing eyes
It gave its simple charms ;
But many a perfumed breeze has passed,
And many a blossom fair,
Since with a careless heart I twined
Its green wreaths in my hair.
The barberry bush — the poor man's bush !
Its yellow blossoms hang,
As erst, where by the grassy lane
Along I lightly sprang ;
But many a flower has come and gone,
And scarlet berry shone,
Since I, a school-girl in its path,
In rustic dance have flown.
ANNIE IN THE GRAVEYARD.
SHE bounded o'er the graves,
With a buoyant step of mirth ;
She bounded o'er the graves,
Where the weeping willow waves,
Like a creature not of earth.
Her hair was blown aside,
And her eyes were glittering bright;
Her hair was blown aside,
And her little hands spread wide,
With an innocent delight.
She spelt the lettered word
That registers the dead ;
She spelt the lettered word,
And her busy thoughts were stirred
With pleasure as she read.
She stopped and culled a leaf
Left fluttering on a rose ;
She stopped and culled a leaf,
Sweet monument of grief,
That in our churchyard grows.
She culled it with a smile —
'T was near her sister's mound :
She culled it with a smile,
And played with it awhile,
Then scattered it around.
I did not chill her heart,
Nor turn its gush to tears ;
I did not chill her heart —
•Oh, bitter drops will start
Full soon in coming years.
SARAH J. HALE.
(Born 17
SARAH JOSEPHA BCJELL, now Mrs. HALE, |
was born in 1795 at Newport in New Hamp- |
shire, whither her parents had removed soon
after the close of the Revolution, from Say-
brook in Connecticut. There were then few j
schools in that part of the country, and per- |
haps none from which the parents of Miss Bu-
ell would have sought for her more than the
most elementary instruction. Her mother,
however, was a woman of considerable cul
tivation, and of a fine understanding ; she at
tended carefully to the education of her chil
dren, and the studies of our author which she
could not direct were afterward guided by a
brother, who graduated at Dartmouth college
in 1809, and was a good classical and gen
eral scholar. But the completion t)f her ed
ucation was deferred until af.er her marriage,
which took place about the year 1814. Her
husband, Mr. David Hale, was an accom
plished lawyer, well read in the best litera
ture, and anxious for the thorough develop
ment of her abilities, of which he had formed
a high estimate. "We commenced, "writes
Mrs. Hale, " immediately after our marriage,
a system of study, which we pursued togeth
er, with few interruptions, and these una
voidable, during his life. The hours we
allotted for this purpose were from eight
o'clock in the evening till ten. In this man
ner we studied French, botany — then almost
a new science in this country, but for which
my husband had an uncommon taste — and
obtained some knowledge of mineralogy, ge
ology, &c., besides pursuing a long and in
structive course of miscellaneous reading."
Mr. Hale died suddenly in September, 1822,
having been married about eight years, du
ring which he had been eminently successful
in attaining to professional eminence, but
without having yet secured even the basis
of a fortune. Mrs. Hale was a Avidow and
was poor, and after the strongest feelings of
sorrow had subsided, and the affairs of her de
ceased husband had been settled, she formed
plans for tbe support and education of hei
family, which she subsequently executed
with an energy and perseverance which
command admiration, and which with her
powers could not fail of success. Literature,
which had hitherto been cultivated for its
own reward, became now her profession and
only means of support.
The first publication of Mrs. Hale was
The Genius of Oblivion, and other Original
Poems, printed at Concord in 1823. The
Genius of Oblivion is a descriptive story in
about fifteen hundred octosyllabic lines-
founded upon a tradition of the aboriginal
settlement of this country. At the close of
the poem is an intimation of a half-formed
design to write a sequel to it. She says :
And hence Columbia's first inhabitants —
The authors of these Monuments of Old :
And their destruction, I may sing, perchance,
If haply this, my tale, so featly told,
Escape Medusan critics' withering glance,
And in my country's favor live enrolled,
As not unworthy of her smile : but this,
A hope I may but cherish, or — dismiss.
Her next work, hoAvever, was Northwood,
a Tale of New England, in two volumes,
published in Boston in 1827. Her object in
this novel is to illustrate common life among
the descendants of the Puritans, and she un
doubtedly succeeded in sketching with spirit
and singular fidelity the forms of society with
which she was acquainted by observation.
The doctor, the deacon, the family of the
squire, and other village characters, are most
natural and truthful delineations-. But North-
wood evinces little of the constructive fac
ulty, and only its portraitures that have been
referred to can be much commended.
In 1828 Mrs. Hale removed to Boston to
conduct the American Ladies' Magazine, a
monthly miscellany established at that lime,
and edited by her for about nine years. IL
this work were originally published many
of the prose compositions which were sub
sequently issued in two separate volumes
under the titles of Sketches of American
Character, and Traits of American Life In
the same period she published Flora's Inter
preter, The Lady 's Wreath, and several srnalJ
books for children. She remained in Boston
until 1838, when she removed to Philncl*"
SARAH J. HALE.
phia? where she has since resided, as edito
of the Lady's Book, one of the most popula.
and widely-circulated literary periodicals in
the English language.
In 1846 Mrs. Hale published a poem more
remarkable than any other she has written
for a certain delicacy of fancy and expres
sion, under the name of Alice Ray ; and in
1848 appeared her Three Hours, or the Vigii
of Love, and other Poems, a collection in
which Alice Ray is included, and upon which
altogether must rest her best literary repu
tation. Three Hours, or the Vigil of Love,
is very much in the style of some of the more
fantastic stories of Winthrop Mack worth
Praed. The heroine has fled with her lover,
an escaped slate prisoner, from England to
Boston, and the interest of the poem arises
from the effective manner in which, while
she is waiting his return, in a stormy night,
her fears are awakened, and by. a vivid rec
ollection of tales of horror heightened to an
indescribable dread.
It was two hundred years ago,
When moved the world so very slow,
And when the wide Atlantic sea
Appeared like an eternity.
The following scene, from ghostly stories
she heard in childhood, is among the phan
tasms by which she is haunted, and it ex
hibits in a favorable light Mrs. Kale's ca
pabilities in this line of art:
Once a holy man was set
Watching where the witches met.
Open Bible, naked sword —
And three candles on the board —
There the godly man was set
Watching whore the witches met ;
Knowing well his dreadful doom,
Should they drive him from the room.
The candles three were burning bright,
The sword was (lashing back the light,
As it struck the deep midnight;
While the holy book he read, '
And all was still as are the dead.
Suddenly there came a roar
Like breakers on a rocky shore,
When the ocean's thundering boom
Knells the mariner to his tomb.
The good man felt the struggling strife,
As the ship went down with its load of life !
His seat was shaken by the roar,
And upward seemed to rise the floor!
While round and round, as eddies hurl,
The room and table seemed to whirl !
Yet still the holy book read he,
And /.raved for tnose who sail the sea.
Then came a shrieking, wild and high,
As when flames are bursting nigh,
And their blood has stained the sky !
" Fly ! fly ! fly !" in a strangling cry,
Was hoarsely rattled on his ear —
While the crackling flames came near !
And sti.l the holy book read he,
And prayed for those where fires might be.
And then appeared a sight of dread:
The roof was opened above his head ;
He saw, in the far-off, dusky view,
A bloody hand and an arm come through ! —
The lady seemed to see them too.
At the close of the third hour the husband
is restored, and all these fearful shadows are
dispelled. The plot is simple and the exe
cution of the poem generally finished ; but
its effect is marred by the introduction of
some needless reflections and by occasional
changes of the rhythm.
Among the published works of Mrs. Hale
is Ormond Grosvenor, a Tragedy, in Five
Acts, founded upon the celebrated case of
Colonel Isaac Hayne, the revolutionary mar
tyr of South Carolina. This Avas printed in
1838, but it has since heen partly re- written
and very much improved. In 1848 she gave
to the public Harry Guy, a Story of the Sea,
in nearly three thousand lines of most com
pact versification. Her long and elabora te po
ems entitled Felicia, and The Rhime of Life,
appear from some extracts that have been
printed, to possess more impassioned earnest
ness than her other compositions, and they
contain perhaps the clearest expressions of
ler intellectual and social character.
Mrs. Hale has a ready command of pure
.nd idiomatic English, and her style has fre
quently a masculine strength and energy.
She has not much creative power, but she
excels in the aggregation and artistical dis
position of common and appropriate image-
y. She has evidently been all her life a
tudent, and there has been a perceptible
ind constant improvement in her writings
:ver since her first appearance as an author.
Besides her works that have been pub-
ished in separate volumes, she has written
very large number of tales, sketches, es-
ays, criticisms, poems, and other composi-
ions, which are scattered through the vari-
us periodicals with which she has been con-
ected. They are all indicative of sound
rinciples, and of kindness, knowledge, and
udgment.
SARAH J. HALE.
THE MISSISSIPPI.
MONAUCH of rivers in the wide domain
Where Freedom writes her signature in stars,
And bids her eagle bear the blazing scroll
To usher in the reign of peace and love,
Thou mighty Mississippi ! — may my song
Swell with thy power, and though an humble rill,
Roll, like thy current, through the sea of time,
Bearing thy name, as tribute from my soul
Of fervent gratitude and holy praise,
To Him who poured thy multitude of waves.
Shadowed beneath these awful piles of stone,
Where liberty has found a Pisgah height,
O'erlooking all the land she loves to bless,
The jagged rocks and icy towers her guard,
Whose splintered summits seize the warring clouds,
And roll them, broken, like a host o'erthrown,
Adown the mountain's side, scattering their wealth
Of powdered pearl and liquid diamond drops —
There is thy source, great river of the west !
Slowly, like youthful Titan gathering strength
To war with Heaven and win himself a name,
The stream moves onward through the dark ravines,
Rending the roots of over-arching trees,
To form its narrow channel, where the star,
That fain would bathe its beauty in the wave,
Like lover's glance steals trembling through the
That veil the waters with a vestal's care : [leaves
And few of human form have ventured there,
Save the swart savage in his bark canoe.
But now it deepens, struggles, rushes on;
Like goaded war-horse, bounding o'er the foe,
It clears the rocks it may not spurn aside,
Leaping, as Curtius leaped adown the gulf,
And rising, like Antaeus from the fall,
Its course majestic through the land pursues,
And the broad river o'er the valley reigns !
It reigns alone : the tributary streams
Are humble vassals, yielding to its sway;
And when the wild Missouri fain would join
A rival in the race — as Jacob seized
On his red brother's birthright — even so
The swelling Mississippi grasps that wave,
And, rebaptizing, makes the waters one.
It reigns alone — and earth the sceptre feels :
Her ancient trees are bowed beneath the wave,
Or, rent like reeds before the whirlwind's swoop,
Toss on the bosom of the maddened flood,
A floating forest, till the waters, calmed,
Like slumbering anaconda gorged with prey,
Open a haven to the moving mass,
Or form an island in the dark abyss.
It reigns alone : old Nile would ne'er bedew
The lands it blesses with ils fertile tide.
Even sacred Ganges, joined with Egypt's flood,
Would shrink beside this wonder of the west !
Ay, gather Europe's royal rivers all —
The snow-swelled Neva, with an empire's weight
On her broad breast, she yet may overwhelm ;
Dark Danube, hurrying, as by foe pursued,
Through shaggy forests and from palace walls,
To hide its terrors in a sea of gloom ;
The castled Rhine,whose vine-crowned waters flow,
The fount of fable and t ;e source of song ;
The rushing Rhone, in whose cerulean depths
The loving sky seems wedded with the wave ;
The yellow Tiber, choked with Roman spoils,
A dying miser shrinking 'neath his gold ;
And Seine, where Fashion glasses fairest forms ;
And Thames, that bears the riches of the world :
Gather their waters in one ocean mass —
Our Mississippi, rolling proudly on,
Would sweep them from its path, or swallow up,
Like Aaron's rod, these streams of fame and song !
And thus the peoples, from the many lands,
Where these old streams are household memories,
Mingle beside our river, and are one —
And join to swell the strength of Freedom's tide,
That from the fount of Truth is flowing on,
To sweep earth's thousand tyrannies away.
How wise, how wonderful the works of God !
And, hallowed by his goodness, all are good.
The creeping glow-worm, the careering sun,
Are kindled from the effluence of his light ;
The ocean and the acorn-cup are filled
By gushings from the fountain of his love.
He poured the Mississippi's torrent forth,
And heaved its tide above the trembling land —
Grand type how Freedom lifts the citizen
Above the subject masses of the world — •
And marked the limits it may never pass.
Trust in his promises, and bless his power,
Ye dwellers on its banks, and be at peace.
And ye, whose way is on this warrior wave,
When the swoln waters heave with ocean's might,
And storms and darkness close the gate of heaven,
And the frail bark, fire-driven, bounds quivering on,
As though it rent the iron shroud of night,
And struggled with the demons of the flood —
Fear nothing ! He who shields the folded flower,
W'hen tempests rage, is ever present here.
Lean on " our Father's" breast in faith and prsyer
And sleep — his arm of love is strong to save.
Great Source of being, beauty, light, and love
Creator — Lord — the waters worship thee !
Ere thy creative smile had sown the flowers —
Ere the glad hills leaped upward, or the earth,
WTith swelling bosom, waited for her child —
Before eternal Love had lit the sun,
Or Time had traced his dial-plate in stars,
The joyful anthem of the waters flowed :
And Chaos like a frightened felon fled,
While on the deep the Holy Spirit moved.
And evermore the deep has worshipped God;
And bards and prophets tune their mystic lyres.
While listening to the music of the floods.
Oh, could I catch this harmony of sounds,
As borne on dewy wings they float to heaven,
And blend their meaning with my closing strain .
Hark ! as a reed-harp thrilled by whispering winds,
Or naiad murmurs from a pearl-lipped shell,
It comes — the melody of many waves !
And loud, with Freedom's world-awaking note,
The deep-toned Mississippi leads the choir.
The pure, sweet fountains chant of heavenly hope
The chorus of the nfis is household love ;
The rivers roll their song of social joy ;
And ocean's organ voice is sounding forth
The hymn of Universal Brotherhood !
fiO
SARAH J. HALE.
Till-: FOUR-LEAVED CLOVER.
vigdniu i
teachings would we heed."
THKHE knelt beneath the tulip tree
A maiden fair and young;
The flowers overhead bloomed gorgeously,
As though by rainbows flung,
And all around were daisies bright,
And pansies with their eyes of light;
Like gold the sun-kissed crocus shone,
With Beauty's smiles the earth seemed strown,
And Love's warm incense filled the air,
While the fair girl was kneeling there.
In vain the flowers may woo around —
Their charms she does not see,
For she a dearer prize has found
Beneath the tulip tree :
A little four-leaved clover, green
As robes that grace the fairy queen,
And fresh as hopes of early youth,
When life is love, and love is truth —
A talisman of constant love
This humble clover sure will prove !
And on her heart that gentle maid
The severed leaves has pressed,
Which through the coming night's dark shade
Beneath her cheek will rest :
Then precious dreams of one will rise,
Like Love's own star in morning skies,
So sweetly bright, we would the day
His glowing chariot might delay.
What tones of pure and tender thought
Those simple leaves to her have taught '
Of old the sacred misletoe
The Druid's altar bound ;
The Roman hero's haughty brow
The fadeless laurel crowned.
Dark superstition's sway is past,
And war's red star is waning fast,
Nor misletoe nor laurel hold
The mystic language breathed of old ;
For nature's life no power can give,
To bid the false and selfish live.
But still the olive-leaf imparts,
As when, dove-borne, at first,
It taught heaven's lore to human 'hearts
Its hope, and joy, and trust ;
Nor deem the faith from folly springs,
Which innocent enjoyment brings;
Better from earth root every flower,
Than crush imagination's power,
fn true and loving minds, to raise
An Eden for their coming days.
As on each rock, where plants can cling,
'''he sunshine will be shed
As from the tiniest star-lit spring
The ocean's depth's are fed
Thus hopes will rise, if love's clear ray
Keep warm and bright life's rock-strewn way •
And from small, daily joys, distilled,
The heart's deep fount of peace is filled :
Oh, blest when Fancy's ray is given,
Like the ethereal spark, from Heaven !
DESCRIPTION OF ALICE RAY.
THE birds their love-notes warble
Among the blossomed trees;
The flowers are sighing forth their sweeta
To wooing honeybees ;
The glad brook o'er a pebbly floor
Goes dancing on its way —
But not a thing is so like spring
As happy Alice Ray.
An only child was Alice,
And, like the blest above,
The gentle maid had ever breathed
An atmosphere of love ;
Her father's smile like sunshine came,
Like dew her mother's kiss ;
Their love and goodness made her home,
Like heaven, the place of bliss.
Beneath such lender training
The joyous child had sprung,
Like one bright flower, in wild-wood bower
And gladness round her flung ;
And all who met her blessed her,
And turned again to pray,
That grief and care might ever spare
The happy Alice Rray.
The gift that made her charming
Was not from Venus caught;
Nor was it, Pallas-like, derived
From majesty of thought :
Her healthful cheek was tinged with brown,
Her hair without a curl —
But then her eyes were love-lit stars,
Her teeth as pure as pearl.
And when in merry laughter
Her sweet, clear voice was heard,
It welled from out her happy heart
Like carol of a bird ;
And all who heard were moved to smiles,
As at some mirthful lay,
And, to the stranger's look, replied,
"'Tis that dear Alice Ray."
And so she came, like sunbeams
That bring the April green —
As type of nature's royalty,
They called her " Woodburn's queen !"
A sweet, heart-lifting cheerfulness,
Like springtime of the year,
Seemed ever on her steps to wait
No wonder she was dear.
Her world was ever joyous —
She thought of grief and pain
As giants of the olden time,
That ne'er would come again ;
The seasons all had charms for her,
She welcomed each with joy
The charm that in her spirit lived
No changes could destroy.
Her love made all things lovely,
For in the heart must live
The ^feeling that imparts the charm
We gain by what we give.
SARAH J. HALE.
IRON.
" Truth shall spring out of the earth."— Psalm Ixxxv. 11.
A.S, in lonely thought, I pondered
On the marv'lous things of earth,
And, in fancy's dreaming, wondered
At their beauty, power, and worth,
Came, like words of prayer, the feeling —
Oh ! that God would make me know,
Through the spirit's clear revealing,
What, of all his works below,
Is to man a boon the greatest,
Brightening on from age to age,
Serving truest, earliest, latest,
Through the world's long pilgrimage.
Soon vast mountains rose before me,
Shaggy, desolate, and lone,
Their scarred heads were threat'ning o'er me,
Their dark shadows round me thrown ;
Then a voice, from out the mountains,
As an earthquake shook the ground,
And like frightened fawns the fountains,
Leaping, fled before the sound ;
And the Anak oaks bowed lowly,
Quivering, aspen-like, with fear —
While the deep response came slowly,
Or it must have crashed mine ear !
"Iron! iron! iron!" — crashing,
Like the battle-axe and shield !
Or the sword on helmet clashing,
Through a bloody battle-field :
" Iron ! iron ! iron !" — rolling,
Like the far-off cannon's boom ;
Or the death-knell, slowly tolling,
Through a dungeon's charnel gloom !
" Iron ! iron ! iron !" — swinging,
Like the summer winds at play;
Or as bells of Time were ringing
In the blest millennial day !
Then the clouds of ancient fable
Cleared away before mine eyes;
Truth could tread a footing stable
O'er the gulf of mysteries !
Words, the prophet-bards had uttered,
Signs, the oracle foretold,
Spells, the weird-like sybil muttered,
Through the twilight days of old,
Rightly read, beneath the splendor.
Shining now on history's page,
All their faithful witness render —
All portend a better age.
Sisyphus, for ever toiling,
Was the type of toiling men,
While the stone of power, recoiling,
Crushed them back to earth again !
Stern Prometheus, bound and bleeding,
Imaged man in mental chain,
While the vultures, on him feeding,
Were the passions' vengeful reign ;
Still a ray of mercy tarried
On the cloud, a white-winged dove,
For this mystic faith had married
Vulcan to the queen of love f
Rugged strength and radiant beauty —
These were one in nature's plan ;
Humble toil and heavenward duty —
These will form the perfect man !
Darkly was this doctrine taught us
By the gods of heathendom ;
But the living light was brought us,
When the gospel morn had come !
How the glorious change, expected,
Could be wrought, was then made free •
Of the earthly, when perfected,
Rugged iron forms the key !
" Truth from out the earth shall flourish,"
This the Word of God makes known —
Thence are harvests men to nourish —
There let iron's power be shown.
Of the swords, from slaughter gory,
Ploughshares forge to break the soil ;
Then will Mind attain its glory,
Then will Labor reap the spoil —
Error cease the soul to 'wilder,
Crime be checked by simple good,
As the little coral-builder
Forces back the furious flood.
While our faith in good grows stronger,
Means of greater good increase ;
Iron, slave of war no longer,
Leads the onward march of peace ;
Still new modes of service finding,
Ocean, earth, and air, it moves,
And the distant nations binding,
Like the kindred tie it proves ;
WTith its Atlas-shoulder sharing
Loads of human toil and care ;
On its wing of lightning bearing
Thought's swift mission through the air
As the rivers, farthest flowing.
In the highest hills have birth ;
As the banyan, broadest growing,
Oftenest bows its head to earth —
So the noblest minds press onward,
Channels far of good to trace ;
So the largest hearts bend downward,
Circling all the human race ;
Thus, by iron's aid, pursuing
Through the earth their plans of love,
Men our Father's will are doing,
Here, as angels do above !
THE WATCHER.
THE night was dark and fearful,
The blast swept wailing by ; —
A watcher, pale and tearful,
Looked forth with anxious eye :
POW wistfully she gazes —
No gleam of morn is there !
And then her heart upraises
Its agony of prayer !
Within that dwelling lonely,
Where want and darkness reigu.
Her precious child, her only,
Lay moaning in his pain ;
SARAH J. HALE.
And death alone can free him —
She feels that this must be:
" But oh ! for morn to see him
Smile once again on me !"
A hundred lights are glancing
In yonder mansion fair,
And merry feet are dancing —
They heed not morning there :
Oh ! young and lovely creatures,
One lamp, from out your store,
Would give that poor boy's features
To her fond gaze once more !
The morning sun is shining —
She heedeth not its ray ;
Beside her dead, reclining,
That pale, dead mother lay !
A smile her lip was wreathing,
A smile of hope and love,
As though she still were breathing — •
" There 's light for us above !"
I SING TO HIM
to him ! I dream he hears
The song he used to love,
And oft that blessed fancy cheers
And bears my thoughts above.
Ye say 'tis idle thus to dream —
But why believe it so ?
It is the spirit's meteor gleam
To soothe the pang of wo.
Love gives to nature's voice a tone
That true hearts understand —
The sky, the earth, the forest lone,
Are peopled by his wand ;
Sweet fancies all our pulses thrill
While {razing on a flower,
And from the gently whisp'ring rill
Is heard the words of power.
I breathe the dear and cherished name,
And long-lost scenes arise;
Life's glowing landscape spreads the same ;
The same hope's kindling skies ;
The violet-bank, the muss-fringed seat
Beneath the drooping tree,
The clock that chimed the hour to meet,
My buried love, with thee —
0, these are all before me, when
In fancy's realms I rove ;
Why urge me to the world again \
^ Why say the ties of love,
That death's cold, cruel grasp has riven,
Unite no more below 1
I'll sing to him — for though in heaven,
He surely heed* my wo !
THE LIGHT OF HOME.
Mr son, thou wilt dream the world is fair,
And thy spirit will sigh to roam,
And thou must go ; — but never, when there,
Forget the light of home !
Though pleasure may smile with a ray more bright,
It dazzles to lead astray ;
Like the meteor's flash, 'twill deepen the night
When treading thy lonely way:
But the hearth of home has a constant flame,
And pure as vestal fire ;
'Twill burn, 'twill burn for ever the same,
For nature feeds the pyre.
The sea of ambition is tempest-tossed,
And thy hopes may vanish like foam :
When sails are shivered and compass lost,
Then look to the light of home !
And there, like a star through the midnight cloud,
Thou shalt see the beacon bright,
For never, till shining on thy shroud,
Can be quenched its holy light.
The sun of fame may gild the name,
But the heart ne'er felt its ray ;
And fashion's smiles that rich ones claim,
Are beams of a wintry day :
How cold and dim those beams would be,
Should life's poor wanderer come ! —
My son, when the world is dark to thee,
Then turn to the light of home.
THE TWO MAIDENS.
OXE came with light and laughing air,
And cheek like opening blossom —
Bright gems were twined amid her hair,
And glittered on her bosom,
And pearls and costly diamonds deck
Her round, white arms arid lovely neck.
Like summer's sky, with stars bcdight,
The jewelled robe around her,
And dazzling as the noontide light
The radiant zone that bound her —
And pride and joy were in her eye,
And mortals bowed as she passed by.
Another came : o'er her sweet face
A pensive shade was stealing ;
Yet there no grief of earth we trace —
But the heaven-hallowed feeling
Which mourns the heart should ever stray
From the pure fount of truth away.
Around her brow, as snowdrop fair,
The glossy tresses cluster,
Nor pearl nor ornament was there,
Save the meek spirit's lustre ;
And faith and hope beamed in her eye,
Am angels bowed as she passed bv.
ANNA MARIA WELLS.
(Born 1797).
MRS. WELLS, formerly Miss FOSTER, was
Dorn ia Gloucester, Massachusetts. Her fa
ther died while she was an infant, and her
mother, in a few years, married Mr. Locke,
of Boston, the father of Mrs. Osgood. She
began to write verses when very young, but
published little until her marriage, in 1829,
with Mr. Thomas Wells, of the United States
revenue service, who was also an author of
considerable merit, as is evident from some
pieces by him quoted in Mr. KettelPs Speci
mens of American Poetry.
In 1830 Mrs. Wells published a small vol
ume entitled Poems and Juvenile Sketches,
and she has since been an occasional contri
butor to several periodicals that have been
edited by her personal friends. The poems
of Mrs. Wells are characterized by womanly
feeling and a tasteful simplicity of diction.
Her range is limited, and she has the good
sense to enter only the fields to which she is
invited by her affections and the natural fan
cies which are their children. While there
fore her successes have not been brilliant they
have been honorable, and she has to regret
no failures.
ASCUTNEY.
IN a low, white-washed cottage, overrun
With mantling vines, and sheltered from the sun
By rows of maple trees, that gently moved
Their graceful limbs to the mild breeze they loved,
Oft have I lingered — idle it might seem,
But that the heart was busy ; and I deem
Those minutes not misspent, when silently
The soul communes with nature, and is free.
O'erlooking this low cottage, stately stood
The huge Ascutney : there, in thoughtful mood,
I loved to hold with her gigantic form
Deep converse — not articulate, but warm
With feeling's noiseless eloquence, and fit
The soul of nature with man's soul to knit.
In various aspect, frowning on the day,
Or touched with morning twilight's silvery gray,
Or darkly mantled in the dusky night,
Or by the moonbeams bathed in showers of light —
In each, in all, a glory still was there,
A spirit of sublimity ; but ne'er
Had such a might of loveliness and power
The mountain wrapt, as when, at midnight hour,
I saw the tempest gather rounJ her head :
It was an hour of joy, yet tinged with dread.
As the deep thunder rolled from cloud to cloud,
From all her hidden caves she cried aloud :
Wood, cliff, and valley, with the echo rung;
From rock and crag darting, with forked tongue
The lightning glanced, a moment laying bare
Her naked brow, then silence — darkness there !
And straight again the tumult, as if rocks
Had split, and headlong rolled. But nature mocks
All language: these are scenes I ne'er again
May look upon — but precious thoughts remain
On memory's page ; and ever in my heart,
A raid all other claims, that mountain hath a part.
THE TAMED EAGLE.
HE sat upon his humble perch, nor flew
At my approach ;
But as I nearer drew,
Looked on me, as I fancied, with reproach,
And sadness too :
And something still his native pride proclaimed,
Despite his wo ;
Which, when I marked — ashamed
To see a noble creature brought so low —
My heart exclaimed :
« Where is the fire that lit thy fearless eye,
Child of the storm,
When from thy home on high,
Yon craggy-breasted rock, I saw thy form
Cleaving the sky 1
" It grieveth me to see thy spirit tamed —
Gone out the light
That in thine eyeball flamed,
When to the midday sun thy steady flight
Was proudly aimed !
" Like a young dove forsaken, is the look
Of thy sad eye,
Who, in some lonely nook,
Mourns on the willow bough her destiny,
Beside the brook.
" Oh, let not me insult thy fallen dignity,
Thou monarch bird,
Gazing with vulgar eye
Upon thy ruin ; for my heart is stirred
To hear thy cry.
" Yet, something sterner in thy downward gaze
Doth seem to lower,
And deep disdain betrays,
As if thou cursed man's poorly-acted power,
And scorned his praise."
63
ANNA MARIA WELLS.
THE OLD ELM THEE.
EACH morning, when my waking eyes first see,
Through the wreathed lattice, gol len day appear,
There sits a robin on the old elm tree,
And with such stirring music liils my ear,
I iniiiht forget that life had pain or fear,
And fee! again as I was wont to do, [new.
When hope was young, and joy and life itself were
No miser, o'er his heaps of hoarded gold,
Nor monarch, in the plenitude of power,
Nor lover, f'rrr the chaste maid to enfold
Who ne'er hath owned her love till that blest hour,
Nor poet, couched in rocky nook or bower,
Knoweth more heartfelt happiness than he,
That never tiring warbler of the old elm tree.
From even the poorest of Heaven's creatures, such
As know no rule but impulse, we may draw
Lemons of sweet humility, and much
Of apt instruction in the homely law
Of nature : and the time hath been, I saw
Naught, beautiful or mean, but had for me [tree.
Some charm, even like the warbler of the old elm
And listening to his joy inspiring lay,
Some sweet reflections are engendered thence :
As half in tears, unto myself I say,
God, who hath given this creature sources whence
He such delight may gather and dispense,
Hath in my heart joy's living fountain placed,
More free to flow, the oftener of its waves I taste.
ANNA.
WITH the first ray of morning light
^ Her face is close to mine — her face all smiles :
She hovers round my pillow like a sprite
Mingling with tenderness her playful wiles.
All the long day
She 's at some busy play ;
Or 'twixt her tiny fingers
The scissors or the needle speeds ;
Or some sweet story-book she reads,
And o'er it serious lingers.
She stops like some glad creature of the air,
As if she read her fate, and knew it fair
In truth, for tlite at all she hath no care.
Yet hath she tears as well as gladness:
A butterfly in pain
Will make her weep for sadness,
But straight she'll smile again.
And lately she hath pressed the couch of pain
Sickness hath dimmed her eye,
And on her tender spirit Iain,
And brought her near to die.
But like the flower
That droops at evening hour,
And opens gayly in the morning,
Again her quick eye glows,
And health's fresh rose
Her soft cheek is adorning.
Hushed was her childish lay:
Like some sweet bird did sickness hold her in a net ;
And when she broke away,
And shook her wings in the bright day,
Her recent capture she did quite forget.
What joy again to hear her blessed voice !
My heart, lie still, but in thy quietness rejoice !
Again, along the floor and on the stair,
Coming and going, I hear her rapid feet ;
Again her little, simple, earnest prayer,
Hear her, at bedtime, in low voice repeat.
Again, at table, and the fire beside,
Her dear head rises, smiling with the rest ;
Again her heart and rnind are open wide
To yield and to receive — bless and be blest —
Pliant and teachable, and oft revealing
Thoughts that must ripen into higher feeling.
Oh, sweet maturity ! — the gentle mood
Raised to the intellectual and the good ;
The bright, affectionate, and happy child —
The woman, pure, intelligent, and mild !
It must be so : they can not waste on air
A mother's labor and a mother's prayer.
THE FUTURE.
THE flowers, the many flowers,
That all along the smiling valley grew,
While the sun lay for hours,
Kissing from off their drooping lids the dew ;
They, to the summer air
No longer prodigal, their sweet breath yield :
Vainly, to bind her hair,
The village maiden seeks them in the field.
The breeze, the gentle breeze,
That wandered like a frolic child at play,
Loitering mid blossomed trees,
Trailing their stolen sweets along its way,
No more adventuresome,
Its whispered love is to the violet given ;
The boisterous North has come,
And scared the sportive trifler back to heaven.
The brook, the limpid brook,
That prattled of its coolness, as it went
Forth from its rocky nook,
Leaping with joy to be no longer pent
Its pleasant song is hushed :
The sun no more looks down upon its play
Freely, where once it gushed,
The mountain torrent drives its noisy way.
The hours, the youthful hours,
When in the cool shade we were wont to lie,
Idling with fresh culled flowers,
In dreams that ne'er could know reality :
Fond hours, but half enjoyed,
Like the sweet summer breeze they passed away,
And dear hopes were destroyed,
Like buds that die before the noon of day.
Young life, young turbulent life,
If, like the stream, it take a wayward course,
Tis lost mid folly's strife
O'erwhelmed at length by passion's curbless force :
Nor deem youth's buoyant hours
For idle hopes or useless musings given—
Who dreams away his powers,
The reckless slumberer shall not wake to heaven.
ANNA MARIA WELLS.
THE WHITE HARE.
IT was the sabbath eve — we went,
My Geraldine and I, intent
The twi'ight hour to pass,
Where we might hear the water flow,
And scent the freighted winds that blow
Athwart the vernal grass.
In darker grandeur — as the day
Stole scarce perceptibly away —
The purple mountain stood,
Wearing the young moon as a crest:
The sun, half sunk in the far west,
Seemed mingling with the flood.
The cooling dews their balm distilled ;
A holy joy our bosoms thrilled ;
Our thoughts were free as air ;
And, by one impulse moved, did we
Together pour instinctively
Our songs of gladness there.
The green wood waved its shade hard by,
WThile thus we wove our harmony :
Lured by the mystic strain,
A snow-white hare, that long had been
Peering from forth her covert green,
Came bounding o'er the plain.
Her beauty, 'twas a joy to note —
The pureness of her downy coat,
Her wild yet gentle eye —
The pleasure that, despite her fear,
Had led the timid thing so near
To list our minstrelsy.
All motionless, with head inclined,
^She stood, as if her heart divined
The impulses of ours —
Till the last note had died — and then
Turned half reluctantly again,
Back to her greenwood bowers.
Once more the magic sounds we tried —
Again the hare was seen to glide
From out her sylvan shade ;
Again, as joy had given her wings,
Fleet as a bird she forward springs
Along the dewy glade.
Go, happy thing ! disport at will —
Take thy delight o'er vale and hill,
Or rest in leafy bower :
The harrier may beset thy way,
The cruel snare thy feet betray —
Enjoy thy little hour !
We know not, and we ne'er may know
The hidden springs of joy and wo,
That deep within^ do lie :
The silent workings of thy heart
Do almost seem to have a part
With our humanity !
THE SEA-BIRD.
SEA-BTTU> ! haunter of the wave,
Delighting o'er its crest to hover ;
Half engulfed where yawns the cave
The billow forms in rolling over;
Sea-bird ! seeker of the storm !
In its shriek thou dost rejoice ;
Sending from thy bosom warm
Answer shriller than its voice.
Bird, of nervous winged flight,
Flashing silvery to the sun,
Sporting with the sea-foam white —
When will thy wild course be done *
Whither tends it 1 Has the shore
No alluring haunt for thee ]
Nook, with tangled vines grown o'er,
Scented shrub, or leafy tree 1
Is the purple seaweed rarer
Than the violet of the spring 1
Is the snowy foam-wreath fairer
Than the apple's blossoming ]
Shady grove and sunny slope —
Seek but these, and thou shalt meet
Birds not born with storm to cope,
Hermits of retirement sweet —
Where no winds too rudely swell,
But in whispers, as they pass,
Of the fragrant flow'ret tell,
Hidden in the tender grass.
There the mockbird sings of love ;
There the robin builds his nest ;
There the gentle-hearted dove,
Brooding, takes her blissful rest.
Sea-bird, stay thy rapid flight :
Gone ! where dark waves foam and dash.
Like a lone star on the night —
Far I see his white wing flash.
He obeyeth God's behest,
All their destiny fulfil :
Tempests some are born to breast —
Some to worship and be still.
If to struggle with the storm
On life's ever-changing sea,
Where cold mists enwrap the form,
My harsh destiny must be —
Sea-bird ! thus may I abide
Cheerful the allotment given,
And, rising o'er the ruffled tide,
Escape at last, like thee, to heaven t
MARIA JAMES.
(Born 1795).
IN 1S33, Bishop Potter, then one of the
professors in Union College, was shown by
his wife, who had just returned from a visit
to Rhinebeck on the Hudson, the Ode for the
Fourth of July which is quoted on the next
page, and informed that it was the production
of a young woman at service in the family
of a friend there, whom he had often noticed
on account of her retiring and modest man
ners, and who had been in that capacity more
than twenty years. When further advised
that these lines had been thrown off with
great rapidity and apparent ease, and that
the writer had been accustomed almost from
childhood to find pleasure in similar efforts,
the information awakened a lively interest,
and led him to examine other pieces from
the same hand, and finally to introduce them
to the public notice, in a preface over his
signature to the volume entitled Wales and
other Poems, by MARIA JAMES, published in
1839.
MARIA JAMES is the daughter of poor but
pious parents who emigrated to this country
from Wales, near the beginning of the pres
ent century, and settled near the slate quar
ries in the northern part of New York. Her
remaining history is told in an interesting
manner in the following extracts from a let
ter wnich she addressed to Mrs. Potter:
" Toward the completion of my seventh year, I
found myself on ship-hoard, surrounded hy men, wo-
nii-ii ;md children, whose friers \veiv unknown to me.
Jt wsis here, perhaps, Hint I first began to learn in a
particular manner from observation — soon discovering
that, thus*- children who were handsome or smartly
dressed received much more attention than myself)
wK> had neither of these recommendations: 'how
ever, instead of giving way to feehn-s of envy and
jealousy, my imagination was revelling among1 the
fruits and (lowers which I expected to find in the
land to which we wen; hound. I also had an oppor
tunity to learn a littl" Kn-lisli during the voyage, as
'Take care,' and '(Jet out of the way,' seemed reit
erated from land's end to land's end.'
" After our family were settled in some measure,
1 was sent to school, my father bavin- commenced
teaching me at home some time previous. I think
there was no particular aptness to learn about me.
Aft.T I could read, I rwk much delL-ht in John
Rogers'! last advice to his children, with all the
excellent et cameras to he found in the old Kn-rlish
Primer. I was also fond of reading the common
liymnhook. The New Testament was my only
•»cliool-hook. Tims accomplished, I happened one
day to hear a young woman read Add icon's inimita
ble paraphrases of the twenty-third psalm : 1 1'stened
as to the voice of an angel. Those who know the
power of good reading or good speaking, need not
be told that, where there is an ear for sound, the
manner in which either is done will make every pos
sible difference. This, probably, was the first time
that I ever heard a good reader.
" My parents again removing, I found myself in a
school where the elder children used the American
P receptor. I listened in transport as they read
DwL'ht's Columbia, which must have been merely
fr< m the smoothness of its sound, as 1 could have had
but very little knowledge of its meaning. 1 was now
ten years of age, and as an opportunity offered which
my parents saw fit to embrace, 1 entered the family
in which I now reside, where, besides learninir many
useful household occupations, that care and attention
was paid to my words and actions as is seldom to be
met with in such situations. I had before me some
of the best models for good reading and cood speak
ing; and any child, with a natural ear for the beauti
ful in language, will notice these thiii-:s, and though
their conversation may not differ materially from that
of others in their line of life, they will almost invari
able think in the style of their admiration.
" The Bible here, as in my father's house, was the
book of books, the heads of the family constantly im
pressing on all, that ' the fear of the. Lord is the be
ginning of wisdom,' and that to 'depart from iniquity
is understanding.' There is scarcely anything that
can affect the mind of young persons like those les
sons of wisdom which fall from lips they love and re
spect.
" Besides frequent opportunities of hearing instruc
tive books read, 1113' leisure hours were often devoted
to one or the other of these works : first, the Female
Mentor, comprising within itself a little epitome of
elegant literature; two odd volumes of the Adven
turer; Miss Hannah More's Cheap Repository; and
Pilgrim's Progress. During a period of nearly seven
years which I spent in this family, the newspapers
were more or less filled with the wars and fightings
of our European neighbors. My imagination took
fire, and I lent an ear to the whispers of the muse.
"Twas then that first she pruned the wing;
'Twas then she first essayed to sing.'
But the wing was powerless, and the sonir without
melody. As I advanced toward womanhood, I shrunk
from the nickname of poet, which had been awarded
me : the very idea seemed the height of presump
tion. In my seventeenth year I left this situation to
learn dressmaking. I sewed neatly, but too slow to
insure success. My failure in this was always a sub
ject of regret. After this, I lived some time in dif
ferent situations, my employment beiiiLT principally
in the nursery. In each of these different families I
had access to those who spoke the purest English,
also frequent opportunities of hearing correct and
elegant readers — at least I believed them such by
the effect produced on my feelings; and althougu
nineteen years have nearly passed away since my
return to the home of my early life, 1 have not ceased
to remember with gratitude the kind treatment re
ceived from different persons at this period, while
my attachment to their children has not been oblit
erated by time nor by absence, and is likely to con
tinue till death
" With respect to the few poems which you have
66
MARIA JAMES.
67
been so kind as to overlook, I can hardly say myself
how they came to be written. I recollect, many
years ago, of trying something- in this way for the
amusement of a little boy who was very dear to me;
except this, with a very few other pieces, long for
gotten, no attempt of the kind was made until The
Mother's Lament, and Elijah, with a number of epi
taphs, which were written previous to those which
have been produced within the last six years. The
subject of the Hummingbird, (the oldest of these,)
was taken captive by my own hand. The Adven
ture is described just as it happened. Wales is a
kind of retrospect of the days of childhood Of
Ambition, permit me, dear madam, to call your at
tention to the summer of 1832, when yourself) with
the other ladies of this family, were reading Bourn-
enne's Life of Napoleon Bonaparte : 1 hud opportu
nities of hearing a little sometimes, which brought
forcibly to my mind certain conversations which I
heard in the* early part of my life respecting this
wonderful man. The poem was produced the fol
lowing summer. In the year 1819, The American
Flag appeared in the New York American, signed
' Croaker & Co.' : this kindled up the poetic fires in
my breast, which, however, did not find utterance
until fourteen years afterward, in the Ode on the
Fourth of July, 1833. This appearing in print, some
who did not know me very well inquired of others,
' Do you suppose she ever wrote it ?' Being an
swered in the affirmative, it was imagined ' she must
have had help.' These remarks gave rise to the ques
tion, What is poetry ? The Album was begun and
carried through without previous arrangement or
design, laid aside when the mind was weary, and
taken up again just as the subject happened to pre
sent itself. Friendship was produced in the same
way. Many of the pieces are written from impres
sions received in youth, particularly the Whip-poor-
will, the Meadow Lark, the Firefly, &c."
In the Introduction to her poems Bishop
Potter vindicates in an admirable manner,
against the sneers of Johnson, the propriety
of recognising the abilities of the humblest
classes. It will be seen that the poems of
Maria James will bear a very favorable com
parison with the compositions uf any of the
"uneducated poets" whose names are cele
brated in Mr. Southey's fine essay upon this
subject.
ODE,
WRITTEN FOR THE FOURTH OF JULY, 1833.
[ SEE that banner proudly wave —
Yes, proudly waving yet ;
Not a stripe is torn from the broad array,
Not a single star is set;
And the eagle, with unruffled plume,
Is soaring aloft in the welkin dome.
Not a leaf is plucked from the branch he bears;
From his grasp not an arrow has flown ;
The mist that obstructed his vision is past,
And the murmur of discord is gone :
For he sees,with a glance over mountain and plain,
The Union unbroken, from Georgia to Maine.
Far southward, in that sunny clime,
Where bright magnolias bloom,
And the orange with the lime tree vies
In shedding rich perfume,
A sound was heard like the ocean's roar,
As its surges break on the rocky shore.
Was it the voice of the tempest loud,
As it felled some lofty tree,
Or a sudden flash from a passing storm
Of heaven's artillery 1
Butjt died away, and the sound of doves
Is heard again in the scented groves.
The links are all united still
That form the golden chain,
And peace and plenty smile around,
Throughout the wide domain :
How feeble is language, how cold is the lay,
Compared with the joy of this festival day —
To see that banner waving yet —
Ay, waving proud and high —
No rent in all its ample folds,
No stain of crimson dye :
And the eagle spreads his pinions fair,
And mounts aloft in the fields of air.
THE PILGRIMS.
TO A LADY.
WE met as pilgrims meet,
Who are bound to a distant shrine,
Who spend the hours in converse sweet
From noon to the day's decline —
Soul mingling with soul, as they tell of their fears
And their hopes, as they pass thro' the valley of tears.
And still they commune with delight,
Of pleasures or toils by the way,
The winds of the desert that chill them by night,
Or heat that oppresses by day :
For one to the faithful is ever at hand,
As the shade of a rock in a weary land.
We met as soldiers meet,
Ere yet the fight is won —
Ere joyful at their captain's feet
Is laid their armor down :
Each strengthens his fellow to do and to bear,
In hope of the crown which the victors wear.
Though daily the strife they renew,
And their foe his thousands o'ercome,
Yet the promise unfailing is ever in view
Of safety, protection, and home : [conferred,
Where they knew that their sovereign such favor
" As eye hath not seen, as the ear hath not heard."
We met as seamen meet,
On ocean's watery plain,
Where billows rise and tempests beat,
Ere the destined port they gain :
But tempests they baffle, and billows they brave,
Assured that their pilot is mighty to save.
They dwell on the scenes which have past,
Of perils they still may endure —
The haven of rest, where they anchor at Ia?\
Where bliss is complete and secure —
Till its towers and spires arise from afar,
(To the eye of faith,^ as some radiant star,
MARIA JAMES.
We met as brethren meet,
Who are cast on a foreign strand,
Whose hearts arc cheered as they hasten to greet
And commune of their native land —
Of their Father's house in that world above,
Of his tender care and his boundless love.
The city so fair to behold,
The redeemed in their vestments of white —
In those mansions of rest, where, mid pleasures un-
They finally hope to unite : [told,
Where ceaseless ascriptions of praise shall ascend
To God and the Lamb in a world without end.
THE SOLDIER'S GRAVE.*
IN Gallia's sunny fields,
Where blooms the eglantine,
And where luxuriant clusters bend
The fruitful vine —
The youth to manhood rose,
('Tis fancy tells the tale :)
His step was swift as mountain deer
That skims the vale.
And his eagle glance,
Which told perception keen,
" Of will to do and soul to dare,"
Deep fixed within.
Perchance a mother's love,
A father's tender care,
With every kindly household bond,
Were his to share.
Perchance the darling one,
The best beloved was he,
Of all that gathered round the hearth
From infancy.
How fair life's morn to him !
The world was blithe and gay —
Hope, beckoning with an angel's smile,
Led on the way.
He left his native plain,
He bade his home farewell —
And she, the idol of his heart,
The fair Adele.
Though sad the parting hour,
What ardor fixed his breast,
To view the streams, to iread the soil,
Far in the West !
From where the Huron's wave
First greets the ruddy light,
To where Superior, in its glow,
Lies calm and bright —
Where rose the forest deep,
Where stretched the giant shore,
From Del Fuego's utmost bound
To Labrador.
* The (jrave here spoken of was pointed out to the wri
ter us hr tunl resting place ,,f a French officer-a single
mound, without a stone to murk the spot, in Rutland coun
ty Vermont.
How many a gallant ship
Since then has crossed the sea,
Deep freighted from the western world —
But where is he ]
Oh, ne'er beside that hearth
The unbroken ring shall meet,
To tell th' adventurous tale, or join
In converse sweet !
For in that stranger-land
His lonely grave is seen,
Where northern mountains lift their heads
In fadeless green.
TO A SINGING BIRD.
HUSH, hush that lay of gladness,
It fills my heart with pain,
But touch some note of sadness,
Some melancholy strain,
That tells of days departed,
Of hopes for ever flown —
Some golden dream of other years,
To riper age unknown.
The captive, bowed in sadness,
Impatient to be free,
Might call that lay of gladness
The voice of liberty :
Again the joyous carol,
Warm gushing, peals along,
As if thy very latest breath
Would spend itself in song.
Oft as I hear those tones of thine
Will thoughts like these intrude—
"If once compared, thy lot with mine,
How cold my gratitude ;
Though gloom 01 sunshine mark the hours,
Thy bosom, ne'ertheless,
Will pour, as from its inmost fount,
The tide of thankfulness."
GOOD FRIDAY.
THE scene is fresh before us,
When Jesus drained the cup,
As new the day comes o'er us
When he was offered up —
The veil in sunder rending,
The type's and shadows flee,
W^hile heaven and earth are bending
Their gaze on Calvary.
Should mortal dare in numbers,
Where angels, trembling, stand —
Or wake the harp that slumbers
In flaming seraph's hand ]
Then tell the wondrous story
Where rolls Salvation's wave,
And give Him all the glory,
Who came the lost to save.
MARIA BROOKS.
(Born 17S5— Died 1845).
IT may be doubted whether, in the long
catalogue of those whose works illustrate
and vindicate the intellectual character and
position of woman, there are many names
that will shine with a clearer, steadier, and
more enduring lustre, than that of MARIA
DEL OCCIDENTE.
MARIA GOWEN, afterward Mrs. BROOKS,
upon whom this title was conferred origin
ally, I believe, by the poet Southey, was de
scended from a Welsh family that settled in
Charlestown, near Boston, sometime before
the Revolution. A considerable portion of
the liberal fortune of her grandfather was
lost by the burning of that city in 1775, and
he soon afterward removed to Medford,
across the Mystic river, where Maria Gowen
was born about the year 1795. Her father
was a man of education, and among his inti
mate friends were several of the professors
of Harvard college, whose occasional visits
varied the pleasures of a rural life. From
this society she derived, at an early period,
a taste for letters and learning. Before the
completion of her ninth year, she had com
mitted to memory many passages from the
best poets ; and her conversation excited
special wonder by its elegance, variety, and
wisdom. She grew in beauty, too, as she
grew in years, and when her father died, a
bankrupt, before she had attained the age of
fourteen, she was betrothed to a merchant
of Boston, who undertook the completion of
her education, and as soon as she quitted the
school was married to her. Her early wo
manhood was passed in commercial afflu
ence ; but the loss of several vessels at sea
in which her husband was interested was
followed by other losses on land, and years
were spent in comparative indigence. In
that remarkable book, Idomen, or The Vale
of Yumuri, she says, referring fc' this period :
" Our table had been hospitaule, our doors
open to many ; but to part with our well-
garnished dwelling had now become inevit
able. We retired, with one servant, to a re
mote house of meaner dimensions, and Avere
sought no longer by those who had come m
our wealth. I looked earnestly around me ;
the present was cheerless, the future daik
and fearful. My parents were dead, my few
relatives in distant countries, where they
thought perhaps but little of my happiness.
Burleigh I had never loved other than as a
father and protector ; but he had been the
benefactor to my fallen family, and to him I
owed comfort, education, and every ray of
pleasure that had glanced before me in this
world. Bat the sun of his energies was set
ting, and the faults which had balanced his
virtues increased as his fortune declined. He
might live through many years of misery,
and to be devoted to him was my duty while a
spark of his life remained. I strove to nerve
my heart for the worst. Still there were mo
ments when fortitude became faint with en
durance, and visions of happiness that might
have been mine came smiling to my ima
gination. I wept and prayed in agony."
In this period, poetry was resorted to for
amusement arid consolation. At nineteen
she wrote a metrical romance, in seven can
tos, but it was never published. It was fol
lowed by many shorter lyrical pieces, which
were printed anonymously ; and in 1820,
afcer favorable judgments of it had been ex
pressed by some literary friends,* she gave
to the public a small volume entitled Judith,
Esther, ar,d other Poems, by a Lover of the
Fine Arts. It contained many fine passages,
and gave promise of the powers of which
* One of the friend? here alluded to was the late Dr.
Kirklaml president of Harvard college On a blank leaf
of the first copy of the volume that she receive,], she wroto
the following lines, which have not before been printed.
Should e'er my haK-iled-ed mn.-e at cam the height
She TieuibJini;- I'.ajs. jet (ears- to tempt ii" more,
Still will she bless, thoiii-h wounded in ber flight,
Th.- ,-ene.ons hand that gave her stve.n-th to soar.
I'.nt should resistless tempests lierr-l.v meet.
.»,,,( | .,. . vi struggling, '" ''"• whelming wave,
Eve', tl,"'n' one tender, patoBil pulse shall beat
In her" torn heart, for l.ini who strove to sav«
Writing to me in L842, Mrs. Krooks enclose,) these vor«->
and observed : M n-call then, after an nuervalo twen y
ve'ir< Thev have meaning and siticen!> m tnem , Ml
Laving during that time extended my acquaintance with
muw? and an-els, I can not now bear to see either ol
m represented with pluma-e r»ti rheir wings. ><>me
of Ae most celebrated painters have, however, set tfc.
example." ,. ,
70
MARIA BROOKS.
the maturity is illustrated by Zophiiil. The
Volume was dedicated to a friend
who cheered her first faint lays
With the hope-kindling breath of timely praise,
in the following verses :
Lady, I've woven for thee a wreath —
Though pale the buds that gem it,
Think of the gloom they grew beneath,
A or utterly contemn it.
Scarce in my cradle was I laid,
Ere Fate relentless bound me,
Deep in a narrow vale of shade,
Where prisoning rocks surround me.
Lady, I 've culled a wreath for you,
From the lew llowers that grow there.
Because 'twas all that I could do
To lull the sense of wo there.
Yet, lady, I have known delight
The heart witli bliss overilowing,
Endearing forms have blest my sight
With soul and beauty glowing.
For Hope came all arrayed in light,
And pitying stood before me,
Smiled on each flinty barrier's height,
And to its summit bore me.
She showed many a scene divine —
She told me — and descended —
Of joys that never must be mine —
And then — her power was ended.
Oh, pleasures dead as soon as born,
To be forgotten never ! —
Oh, moments fleeting, few, and gone,
To be regretted ever !
A few sweet waves of glowing light
Upon Time's dreary ocean,
Light gales that wake the dead, calm night
To momentary motion ;
Bright beams that in their beauty bless
A dark and desert plain,
To show its fearful loneliness,
And disappear again.
Yet oft she hovers o'er me now,
Each soothing effort making :
So mothers kiss the infant's brow,
But can not cure its aching.
Then, lady, oil, accept my wreath,
Though all besides condemn it ;
Think of the gloom it grew beneath,
Nor utterly contemn it.
In the two principal poems are presented char
acters entirely different in mind and person,
but equally entitled to admiration. In Judith
are exhibited prudence, fortitude, and decis
ion, softened by a feminine sensibility; in
listher a soul painfully alive to every tender
emotion, and a noble elevation of mind strug
gling with constitutional softness and timid
ity. Many passages remind us of her ma-
turest style, as this description of the slayer
of the Assyrian :
With even step, in mourning garb arrayed,
Fair Judith walked, and grandeur marked her air
Though humble dust, in pious sprinklings laid,
Soiled the dark tresses of her copious hair.
And this picture of a boy :
Softly supine his rosy limbs reposed,
His locks curled high, leaving the forehead bar*
And o:er his eyes the light lids gentlv closed,
As they had feared to hide the brilliance there.
And this description of the preparations of
Esther to appear before Ahasuerus:
" Take ye, my maids, this mournful garb away ;
Bring all my glowing gems and garments fair ;
A nation's fate impending hangs to-day
But on my beauty and your duteous care."
Prompt to obey, her ivory form they lave ;
Some comb and braid her hair of wavy gold ;
Some softly wipe away the limpid wave [rolled.
That o'er her dimply limbs in drops of fragrance
Refreshed and faultless from their hands she came
Like form celestial clad in raiment bright;
O'er all her garb rich India's treasures flame,
In mingling beams of rainbow-colored light.
Graceful she entered the forbidden court,
Her bosom throbbing with her purpose high ;
Slow were her steps, and unassured her port,
While hope just trembled in her azure eye.
Light on the marble fell her ermine tread,
And when the king, reclined in musing mood,
Lifts, at the gentle sound, his stately head,
Low at his feet the sweet intruder stood.
Among the shorter poems are several that
are marked by fancy and feeling, and a grace
ful versification, of one of which, an elegy,
these are the opening verses:
Lone in the desert, drear and deep,
Beneath the forest's whispering shade,
Where brambles twine and mosses creep,
The lovely Charlotte's grave is made.
But though no breathing marble there
Shall gleam in beauty through the gloom,
The turf that hides her golden hair
With sweetest desert-flowers shall bloom.
And while the moon her tender light
Upon the hallowed scene shall fling,
The mocking-bird shall sit all night
Among the dewy leaves, and sing.
The following clever translation of tne
Greek of Moschus, from this volume, was
made in the author's seventeenth year :
CUPID THE KUXAWAT.
LTSTKX, listen, softly, clear —
Venus' accents woo the ear !
" Gentle stranger, hast thou seen,"
Thus begins the beauteous queen :
" Hast thou seen my Cupid stray,
Lurking, near the public way 1
MARIA BROOKS.
71
Briii- him back and tlnu slv.ilt sip
A kiss at least from Venus' lip.
'T is a boy of well-known name,
Thou canst know him by his fame :
Fair his face, but overspread,
Cheek and brow, with rosy red ;
And his eyes of azure bright
Sparkle with a fiery light.
Small and snowy are his hands,
But their tender power commands
Even Pluto's empire wide;
Acheron's polluted tide
Loses at their gentle waving
Half the terror of its raving.
At his dimpled shoulders move
Plumy pinions like a dove,
And or youth or maiden meeting,
When among the flowers he 's flitting,
Like a swallow swift he darts,
Perching on their beating hearts.
From his back a quiver fair,
Golden like his curly hair,
Pendent falls in purple ties,
Scattering radiance as he flies.
He the slender dart can throw,
Singing from his polished bow,
Far as heaven : nor will he spare
Even me, his mother, there.
And whene'er a victim bleeds,
Laughing, glorying in his deeds,
Still with added fires to scorch,
He, a little hidden torch,
Deeming not his mischief done,
Kindles at the glowing sun.
If the urchin thou shouldst find,
Let not pity move thy mind ;
Suffer not his tears to grieve thee,
They but trickle to deceive thee.
If he smile upon thee, haste,
Heed him not, but bind him fast.
Should he pout his lips to kiss,
Oh ! avoid the treacherous bliss !
Turn thy head, nor dare to meet
Of his breath the poison sweet.
Should he ply his potent charms,
And presenting thee his arms,
Graceful kneel, and sweetly say,
' Take my proffered gif s, I pray,'
Do not touch them — still disdain —
All are fraught with venorned pain."
In the summer ol' 1823 Mr. Brooks died,
and a paternal uncle soon afier invited the
poetess to Cuba, for which island she sailed
on the 20th of the following O: ober. Here,
in 1824, she completed the first canto of Zo-
phiel, or The Bride of Seven, which had been
planned and nearly written before she left
Boston, and it was published in that city in
1825. The second canto was finished in Cu
ba in the opening of 1827 ; the third, fourth,
and fifth, in 1828, and the sixth in the be
ginning of 1829. The uncle of Mrs. Brooks
was now dead, arid he had left to ner his
coffee plantation and other property, which
afforded her a liberal income. She returned
asrain to the United States, and resided more
than a year in the vicinity of Dartmouth Col
lege, where her son was pursuing his stud
ies ; and in. the autumn of 1830, in company
with her only surviving brother, Mr. Ham
mond Gowen, of Quebec, she went to Paris,
where she passed the following winter. The
curious and learned notes to Zophiel were
written in various places — some in Cuba,
some in Hanover, some in Canada (which she
visited during her residence at Hanover),
some at Paris, and the rest at Keswick, in
England, the home of Robert Southey, where
she passed the spring of 1831. When she
quitted the hospitable home of this much
honored and much attached friend, she left
with him the completed work, which he sub
sequently saw through the press, correcting
the proofsheets himself, previous to its ap
pearance in London, in 1833. On leaving
Keswick, Mrs. Brooks addressed to Southey
the following poem ; and the subsequent cor
respondence between the two poets, which I
have seen, shows that the promise of con
tinued regard was fulfilled :
TO ROBERT SOUTHEY, T.S'4..
On ! laureled bard, how can I part,
Those cheering smiles no more to see,
Until my soothed and solaced heart
Pours forth one grateful lay to thee ?
Fair virtue tuned thy youthful breath,
And peace and pleasure bless thee now ;
For love and beauty guard the wreath
That blooms upon thy manly brow.
The Indian, leaning on his bow,
On hostile cliff, in desert drear,
Cast with less joy his glance below.
When came some friendly warrior near ; —
The native dove of that warm isle
Where oft, with flowers, my lyrt, was drest.
Sees with less joy the sun a while
When vertic rains have drenched her nest,
Than I, a stranger, first beheld
Thine eye's harmonious welcome given
With gentle word, which, as it swelled,
Came to my heart benign as heaven.
Soft be thy sleep as mists that rest
On Skiddaw's top at summer morn ;
Smooth be thy days as Derwent's bivnst
When summer light is almost gone .'
And yet, for thee why breathe a prayer 7
I deem thy fate is -jiven in trust
To seraphs, "who by d lily care
Would prove that Hc:ivcn is not unjust
MARIA BROOKS.
And treasured shall thine ima^e be
In Memory's purest, holiest shrine,
While truth and honor glow in thee,
Or life's warm, quivering pulse is mine.
The materials of Zophiel are universal
that is, such as may be appropriated by even
polished nation. In all the most beautifu
oriental systems of religion, including ou;
own, may be found such beings as its char
acters. The early fathers of Christianity no
only believed in them, but wrote cumbrous
iblios upon their nature and attributes. It is
a fact deserving cf notice, that they never
doubted the existence and the power of the
Grecian and Roman gods, but supposed them
to be fallen angels, who had caused them
selves to be worshipped under particular
forms and for particular characteristics. To
what an extent and to how very late a period
this belief has prevailed, may be learned from
a remarkable little work of Fontenelle,* in
which that pleasing writer endeavors serious
ly to disprove that any preternatural power
was illustrated in the responses of the ancient
oracles. The Christian belief in good and evil
angels is too beautiful to be laid aside. Their
actual and present existence can be disproved
neither by analogy, philosophy, nor theolo
gy, nor can it be questioned wi thout casting a
doubt also upon the whole system of our reli
gion. This religion, by many a fanciful skep
tic, has been called barren and gloomy ; but
setting aside all the legends of the Jews, and
confining ourselves entirely to the generally
received Scriptures, there will be found suffi
cient food for an imagination warm as that of
Homer, Apelles, or Praxiteles. It is astonish
ing that such rich materials for poetry should
for so many centuries have been so little re
garded, appropriated, or even perceived.
Tin- story of Zophiel, though accompanied
by many notes, is simple and easily followed.
Reduced to prose, and a child, or any person
of the commonest apprehension, would read
it with satisfaction. It is in six cantos, and
is supposed to occupy the time of nine months:
iVnin the blooming of roses at Echatana to the
coming in of spices at Babylon. Of this time
the greater part is supposed to elapse be-
tvvfcii the second and third cantos, where
Zophiel thus speaks of Egla to Phraerion:
^et still she bloomed — uninjured, innocent
Though now for seven sweet moons by Zophiel
watched and wooed.
* H:«t')i»-c des Oracles.
The king of Medea, introduced in the sec
ond canto, is an ideal personage ; but the his
tory of that country, near the time of the
second captivity, is very confused, and more
than one young prince like Sardius might
have reigned and died without a record. So
much of the main story, however, as relates
to human life is based upon sacred or profane
history ; and we have sufficient authority for
the legend of an angel's passion for one of
the fair daughters of our own world. It was
a custom in the early ages to style heroes, to
raise to the rank of demigods, men who were
distinguished for great abilities, qualities, or
actions. Above such men the angels who
are supposed to have visited the earth, were
but one grade exalted, and they were capable
of participating in human pains and pleas
ures. Zophiel is described as one of those
who fell with Lucifer, not from ambition or
turbulence, but from friendship and excessive
admiration of the chief disturber of the tran
quillity of heaven: as he declares, when
thwarted by his betrayer, in the fourth canto :
Though the first seraph formed, how could I tell
The ways of guile ? What marvels I believed
When cold ambition mimicked love so well
That half the sons of heaven looked on deceived !
During the whole interview in which this
stanza occurs, the deceiver of men and an
gels exhibits his alleged power of inflicting
pain. He says to Zophiel, after arresting his
course:
" Sublime Intelligence !
Once chosen for my friend and worthy me :
Not so wouldst thou have labored to be hence,
Had my emprise been crowned with victory.
When I was bright in heaven, thy seraph eyes
Sought only mine. But he who every power
Beside, while hope allured him, could despise,
Changed and forsook me in misfortune's hour."
To which Zophiel replies :
: Changed, and forsook thee ? this from thee to me 1
Once noble spirit ! Oh ! had not too much
My o'erfond heart adored thy fallacy,
I had not now been here to bear thy keen reproach ;
'"orsook thee in misfortune ? at thy side
I closer fought as perils thickened round,
Watched o'er thee fallen : the light of heav'n denied,
But proved my love more fervent and profound.
'rone as thou wert, had I been mortal horn,
And owned as many lives as leaves there be,
vrom all Hyrcania by his tempest torn
I had lost, one by one, and given the last for thee
Oh ! had thy plighted pact of faith been kept,
Still unaccomplished were the curse of sin;
Mid all the woes thy ruined followers wept, '
Had friendship lingered, hell could nothave been."
MARIA BROOKS,
Phraerion, another fallen angel, but of a
nature gentler than that of Zophiel, is thus
introduced :
Harmless Phraorion, formed to dwell on high,
Retained the looks that had been his above ;
And his harmonious lip, and sweet blue eye,
Soothed the fallen seraph's heart, and changed his
]N o soul creative in this being bom, [scorn to love ;
Its restless, daring, fond aspirings hid ;
Within the vortex of rebellion drawn,
He joined the shining ranks as others did.
Success but little had advanced ; defeat
He thought so little, scarce to him were worse ;
And, as he held in heaven inferior seat,
Less was his bliss, and lighter was his curse.
He formed no plans for happiness • content
To curl the tendril, fold the bud ; his pain
So light, he scarcely felt his banishment.
Zophiel, perchance, had held him in disdain ;
But, formed for friendship, from his o'erfrauaht soul
'T was such relief his burning thoughts to pour
In other ears, that oft the strong control [more.
Of pride he felt them burst, and could restrain no
Zophisl was soft, but yet all flame ; by turns
Love, grief, remorse, shame, pity, jealousy,
Each boundless in his breast, impels or burns :
His joy was bliss, his pain was agony.
Such are the principal preterhuman char
acters in the poem. Egla, the heroine, is a
Hebress, of perfect beauty, who lives with
her parents not far from the city of Ecbatana,
and has been saved by stratagem from a gen
eral massacre of captives under a former king
of Medea. Being brought before the reign
ing monarch to answer for the supposed
murder of Meles, she exclaims :
Sad from my birth, nay, born upon that day
When perished all my race, my infant ears
Were opened first with groans ; and the first ray
I saw, came dimly through my mother's tears.
Zophiel is described throughout the poem
as burning with the admiration of virtue, yet
frequently betrayed into crime by the pursuit
of pleasure. Straying accidentally to the
grove of Egla, he is struck with her beauty,
and finds consolation in her presence. Hi s first
appearance to her is beautifully described :
in the dusky room, where she mourned her
destiny, is suddenly a light, then something
like a silvery cloud :
The form it hid
Modest emerged, as might a youth beseem ;
Save a slight scarf, his beauty bare, and white
As cygnet's bosom on some silver stream;
Or youno: Narcissus, when to woo the light
Of iis first morn, that floweret open springs ;
And near the maid he comes with timid gaze,
And gently fans her with his full-spread wings,
Transparent as the cooling gush that plays
From ivory fount. Each bright prismatic tint
Still vanishing, returning, blending, changing
About their tender mystic texture glint,
Like colors o'er the fullblown bubble ranging,
That pretty urchins launch upon the air,
And laugh to see it vanish ; yet, sr bright,
More like — and even that were laint compare — •
As shaped from some new rainbow. Rosy light,
Like that which pagans say the dewy car
Precedes of their Aurora, clipped him round,
Retiring as he moved ; and evening's star
Shamed not the diamond coronal that bound
His curly locks. And still to teach kis face
Expression dear to her he wooed, he sought ;
And in his hand he held a little vase
Of virgin gold, in strange devices wrought.
He appears however at an unfortunate mo
ment, for the fair Judean has just yielded to
the entreaties of her mother and assented to
proposals offered by Meles, a noble of the
country ; but Zophiel causes his rival to ex
pire suddenly on entering the bridal apart
ment, and his previous life at Babylon, as
revealed in the fifth canto, shows that he was
not undeserving of his doom. Despite her
extreme sensibility, Egla has much strength
of character ; she is conscientious and cau
tious, and she regards the advances of Zo
phiel with distrust and apprehension. Meles
being missed, she is brought to court to an
swer for his murder. Her sole fear is for her
parents, who are the only Hebrews in the
kingdom, and are suffered to live but through
the clemency of Sardius, a young prince who
has lately come to the throne, and who, like
many oriental monarchs, reserves to himself
the privilege of decreeing death. The king
is convinced of her innocence, and, struck
with her extraordinary beauty and character,
resolves suddenly to make her his queen.
We know of nothing in its way finer than
the description which follows, of her intro
duction, in the simple costume of her coun
try, to a gorgeous banqueting hall in which
he sits with his assembled chiefs :
With unassured yet graceful step advancing,
The light vermilion of her cheek more warm
For doubtful modesty ; while all were glancing
Over the strange attire that well became such form.
To lend her space the admiring band gave way ;
The sandals on her silvery feet were blue ;
Of saffron tint her robe, as when young day
Spreads softly o'er the heavens, and tints the
trembling dew.
Light was that robe as mist ; and not a gem
Or ornament impedes its wavy fold,
Long and profuse, save that, above its hem,
'Twas broidered with pomegranate wreath, m
gold.
71
MARIA BROOKS.
And, hv a silken cincture, broad and blue,
In shapely guise about the waist confined,
Blent with the .curls that, of a lighter hue,
Halt' floated, waving in their length behind;
The other halt, in braided tresses twined,
Was decked \\ iih rows of pearls, and sapphire's az-
Arranged with curious skill to imitate [ure too.
The sweet acacia's blossoms ; just as live
And droop those tender flowers in natural state ,
And so the trembling gems seemed sensitive,
And pendent, sometimes touch her neck ; and there
Seemed shrinking from its softness as alive.
And round her arms, flour-white and round and fair,
Slight bandelets were twined of colors five,
Like little rainbows seemly on those arms ;
None of that court had seen the like before,
Soft, fragrant, bright — so much like heaven her
It scarce could seem idolatry to adore, [charms,
He who beheld her hand forgot her face ;
Yet in that face was all beside forgot;
And he who, as she went, beheld her pace,
And locks profuse, had said, " Nay, turn thee not."
Placed on a banquet couch beside the king,
Mid many a sparkling guest no eye forbore ;
But, like their darts, the warrior princes fling
Such looks as seemed to pierce, and scan her o'er
Nor met alone the glare of lip and eye — [and o'er;
Charms, but not rare : the gazr-r stern and cool,
Who sought but faults, nor fault or spot could spy ;
In every limb, joint, vein, the maid was beautiful,
Save that her lip, like some bud-bursting flower,
Just scorned the bounds of symmetry, perchance,
But by its rashness gained an added power,
Heightening perfection to luxuriance.
But that was only when she smiled, and when
Dissolved the intense expression of her eye ;
And had her spirit love first seen her then,
He had not doubted her mortality.
Idaspes, the Medean vizier, or prime min
ister, has reflected on the maiden's story, and
is alarmed for the safety of his youthful sov
ereign, who consents to some delay and ex
periment, but will not be dissuaded from his
design until five inmates of his palace have
fallen dead in the captive's apartment. The
last of these is Altheetor, a favorite of the
king (whose Greek name is intended to ex
press his qualities), and the circumstances of
his death, and the consequent grief of Egla
and despair of Zophiel, are painted with a
beauty, power, and passion, scarcely sur
passed :
Touching his golden harp to prelude sweet,
Entered the youth, so pensive, pale, and fair;
Advanced respectful to the virgin's feet, [there.
And, lowly bending down, made tuneful parlance
Like perfume, soft his gentle accents rose,
\nd sweetly thrilled the gilded roof along;
Mis \\;inu, devoted soul no terror knows,
And trutn and love lend fervor to his song.
She hides her face upon her couch, that there
She nvi? not see him die. No groan — she springs
Frantic between a hope beam and despair,
And twines her long hair round him as he sings
Then thus : " Oh ! being, who unseen, but near
Art hovering now, behold and pity me !
For love, hope, beauty, music — all that's dear,
Look, look on me, and spare my agony !
Spirit ! in mercy make not me the cause,
The hateful cause, of this kind being's death !
In pity kill me first ! He lives — he draws —
Thou wilt not blast! he draws his harmless breath!"
Still lives Altheetor; still unguarded strays
One hand o'er his fallen "tyre; but all his soul
Is lost — given up. He fain would turn to gaze,
But can not turn, so twined. Now all that stole
Through every vein and thrilled each separate nerve,
Himself could not have told, all wound and clasped
In her white arms and hair. Ah ! can they serve
To save him 1 " What a sea of sweets !" he gasped,
But 't was delight, sound, fragrance, all,were breath
ing.
Still swell'd the transport: "Let me look and thank,'
He sighed, (celestial smiles his lips enwreathing ;)
" I die — but ask no more," he said, and sank —
Still by her arms supported — lower — lower —
As by soft sleep oppressed ; so calm, so fair,
He rested on the purple tapestried floor,
It seemed an angel lay reposing there.
Ar>d Zophiel exclaims —
" He died of love, of the o'erperfect joy
Of being pitied — prayed for — pressed — by thee !
Oh, for the fate of that devoted boy
I 'd sell my birthright to eternity.
I 'm not the cause of this, thy last distress.
Nay ! look upon thy spirit ere he flies !
Look on me once, and learn to hate me less !"
He said, and tears fell fast from his immortal eyes.
Beloved and admired at first, Egla becomes
an object of hatred and fear ; for Zophiel be
ing invisible to others, her story is discred
ited, and she is suspected of murdering by
some baleful art all who have died in her
presence. She is, however, sent safely to
her home, and lives, as usual, in retirement
with her parents. The visits of Zophiel are
now unimpeded. He instructs the young
Jewess in music and poetry ; his admiration
and affection grow with the hours ; and he
exerts his immortal energies to preserve her
from the least pain or sorrow, but selfishly
confines her as much as possible to solitude,
and permits for her only such amusements
as he himself can minister. Her confidence
in him increases, and in her gentle society
he almost fjrgets his fall and banishment.
But the difference in their natures causes
him continual anxiety ; knowing her mortali
ty, he is always in fear that death or sudden
blight will deprivs him of her ; and he con
sults with Phrae. ion on the best means of
MARIA 13 ROOKS.
/.I
saving her from the perils of human exist
ence. One evening,
Round Phraiirion, nearer drawn,
One beauteous arm he flung : " First to my love ! —
We '11 see her safe ; then to our task till dawn."
Well pleased, Phraerion answered that embrace ;
All balmy he with thousand breathing sweets,
From thousand dewy flowers. " But to what place,"
He said, " will Zophiel go ] who danger greets
As if 'twere peace. The palace of the gnome,
Tahathyam, for our purpose most were meet ;
But then, the wave, so cold and fierce, the gloom,
The whirlpools, rocks, that guard that deep retreat !
Yet there are fountains which no sunny ray
E'er danced upon, and drops come there at last,
Which, for whole ages, filtering all the way,
Through all the veins of earth, in winding maze
have past.
These take from mortal beauty every stain,
And smooth the unseemly lines of age and pain,
With every wondrous efficacy rife ;
Nay, once a spirit whispered of a draught,
Of which a drop, by any mortal quaffed, [life.
Would save, for terms of years, his feeble, flickering
Tahathyam is the son of a fallen angel, and
lives concealed in the bosom of the earth,
guarding in his possession a vase of the elixir
of life, bequeathed to him by a father whom
he is not permitted to see. The visit of Zo
phiel and Phraerion to this beautiful but un
happy creature will remind the reader of the
splendid creations of Dante :
The soft flower spirit shuddered, looked on high,
And from his bolder brother would have fled ;
But then the anger kindling in that eye
He could not bear. So to fair Egla's bed [dread,
Followed and looked ; then shuddering all with
To wondrous realms, unknown to men, he led ;
Continuing long in sunset course his flight,
Until for flowery Sicily he bent ;
Then, where Italia smiled upon the night, [scent.
Between their nearest shores chose midway his de-
The sea was calm, and the reflected moon
Still trembled on its surface ; not a breath
Curled the broad mirror : night had passed her noon ;
How soft the air ! how cold the depths beneath !
The spirits hover o'er that surface smooth,
Zophiel's white arm around PhraSrion's twined,
In fond caress, his tender cares to soothe, [hind.
While either's nearer wing the other's crossed be-
Well pleased, Phraerion half forgot his dread,
And first, with foot as white as lotus leaf,
The sleepy surface of the waves essayed ; [grief.
But then his smile of love gave place to drops of
How could he for that fluid, dense and chill,
Change the sweet floods of air they floated on 1
E'en at the touch his shrinking fibres thrill ;
But ardent Zophicl, panting, hurries on,
And (catching his mild brother's tears, with lip
That whispered courage 'twixt each glowing kiss)
Persuades to plunge : limbs, wings, and locks, they
dip;
Whate'er the other's pains, the lover felt but bliss.
Quicklv he draws Phraerion on, his toil
Even lighter than he hoped ; some power benign
Seems to restrain the surges, while they boil
Mid crags and caverns, as of his design
Respectful. That black, bitter element,
As if obedient to his wish, gave way ;
So, comforting Phraerion, on he went,
And a high, craggy arch they reach at dawn of day,
Upon the upper world ; and forced them through
That arch, the thick, cold floods, with such a roar,
That the bold sprite receded, and would view
The cave before he ventured to explore.
Then, fearful lest his frighted guide might part
And not be missed amid such strife and din,
He strained him closer to his burning heart,
And, trusting to his strength, rushed fiercely in.
On, on, for many a weary mile they fare ;
Till thinner grew the floods, long dark and dense,
From nearness to earth's core ; and now, a glare
Of grateful light relieved their piercing sense ;
As when, above, the sun his genial streams
Of warmth and light darts mingling with the waves
Whole fathoms down ; while, amorous of his beams,
Each scaly, monstrous thing leaps from its slimy
And now, Phraerion, with a tender cry, [caves.
Far sweeter than the landlord's note, afar
Heard through the azure arches of the sky,
By the long baffled, storm worn mariner :
" Hold, Zophiol ! rest thec now — our task is done,
Tahathyam's realms alone can give this light !
Oh ! though 'tis not the life awakening sun,
How sweet to see it break upon such fearful night!"
Clear grew the wave, and thin ; a substance white
The wide expanding cavern floors and flanks ;
Could one have looked from high, how fair the sight !
Like these, the dolphin, on Bahaman banks,
Cleaves the warm fluid, in his rainbow tints,
While even his shadow on the sands below
Is seen, as through the wave he glides and glints,
Where lies the polished shell, and branching corals
No massive gate impedes ; the wave in vain [grow.
Might strive against the air to break or fall ;
And, at the portal of that strange domain,
A clear, bright curtain seemed, or crystal wall.
The spirits pass its bounds, but would not far
Tread its slant pavement, like unbidden guest ;
The while, on either side, a bower of spar
Gave invitation for a moment's rest.
And, deep in either bower, a little throne
Looked so fantastic, it were hard to know
If busy Nature fashioned it alone,
Or found some curious artist bore below.
Soon spoke Phra-rion : " Come, Tahathyam, come.
Thou knowest me well— I saw theo once, to love,
And bring a guest to view thy sparkling dome
Who comes full fraught with tidings from above."
Those gentle tones, nngolicully rlenr,
Passed from his lips, in m;v/.y depths retreating,
(As if that bower had been the cavern's ear.)
Full many a stadia far; and kept repeating,
As through the perforated rock they pass,
Echo to echo guiding them ; their tone
(As just from the sweet spirit's lip) at la»t
Tahathyam heard : where on a glittering throna
he solitary sat.
i'tj
MARIA BROOKS.
Sending through the rock an answering
strain, to give the spirits welcome, the gnome
prepares to meet them at his palace door :
He sat upon a car (and the large pearl,
Once cradled in it, glimmered now without),
Bound midway on two serpents' backs, that curl
In silent swiftness as he glides about.
A shell, 'twas first in liquid amber wet,
Thru, ere the fragrant cement hardened round,
All o'er with large and precious stones 'twas set
By skilful Tsavaven, or made or found.
The reins seemed pliant crystal, (but their strength
Had matched his earthly mother's silken band),
And. flecked with rubies, flowed in ample length,
Like sparkles o'er Tahathyam's beauteous hand.
The reptiles, in their fearful beauty, drew.
As if from love, like steeds of Araby;
Like blood of lady's lip their scarlet hue ; [to see.
Their scales so bright and sleek, 'twas pleasure but
With open mouths, as proud to show the bit, [eye
They raise their heads and arch their necks (with
As bright as if with meteor fire 'twere lit) ;
And dart their barbed tongues 'twixt fangs of ivory.
These, when the quick advancing sprites they saw
Furi their swift wings, and tread with angel grace
The smooth, fair pavement, check"-1 their speed in
And glided far aside as if to give thiMi space, [awe.
The errand of the angels is made known
to the sovereign of this interior and resplen
dent world, and upon conditions the precious
elixir is promised ; but first Zophiel and Phra-
cjrion are ushered through sparry portals to a
banquet :
High towered the palace, and its massive pile,
Made dubious if of nature or of art,
So wild and so uncouth ; yet, all the while,
Shaped to strange grace in every varying part.
And proves adorned it, green in hue, and bright,
As icicles about a laurel tree ;
And danced about their twigs a wondrous light;
Whence came that light so far beneath the sea 1
Zophiel looked up to know, and to his view
Tlu« van t scarce seemed less vast than that of day ;
No rocky roof was seen ; a tender blue
Appeared, as of the sky, and clouds about it play :
And, in the midst, an orb looked as 'twere meant
To shame the sun, it mimicked him so well.
But ah! no quickening, grateful warmth it sent;
Cold as the rock beneath, the paly radiance fell.
Within, from thousand lamps, the lustre strays,
Reflected back from gems about the wall ;
And from twelve dolphin shapes a fountain plays,
Just in the centre of a spacious hall ;
But whether in the sunbeam formed to sport,
Tin-so shapes once lived in suppleness and pride,
And then, to decorate this wondrous court,
Were s'o'en from the waves and petrified ;
Or, moulded by some imitative gnome,
And sru'ed aU o'er with gems, they were but stone,
Ciistinir their showers and rainbows neath the dome,'
To nun. or auge.i's eye might not be known.
\o snowy fleece in these sad realms was found,
Nor si ken ball bv maiden loved so well ;
But, ranged in lightest garniture around,
In seemly fo'ds, a shining tapestry fell.
And fibres of asbestos, bleached in fire,
And all with pearls and sparkling gems o'erflecked,
Of that strange court composed the rich attire,
And such the cold, fair form of sad Tahathyam
decked.
Gified with every pleasing endowment, in
possession of an elixir of which a drop per
petuates life and youth, surrounded by friends
of his own choice, who are all axious to please
and amuse him, the gnome feels himself in
ferior in happiness to the lowest of mortals.
His sphere is confined, his high powers use
less, for he is without the " last, best gift of
God to man," and there is no object on which
he can exercise his benevolence. The feast
is described with the terse beauty which
marks all the canto, and at its close —
The banquet cups, of many a hue and shape,
Bossed o'er with gems, were beautiful to view ;
But, for the madness of the vaunted grape,
Their only draught was a pure, limpid dew.
The spirits while they sat in social guise,
Pledging each goblet with an answering kiss,
Marked many a gnome conceal his bursting sighs ;
And thought death happier than a life like this.
But they had music : at one ample side
Of the vast area of that sparkling hall,
Fringed round with gems, that all the rest outvied,
In form of canopy, was seen to fall
The stony tapestry, over what, at first,
An altar to some deity appeared ;
But it had cost full many a year to adjust
The limpid crystal tubes that neath upreared
Their different lucid 'lengths ; and so complete
Their wrondrous 'rangement, that a tuneful gnome
Drew from them sounds more varied, clear, and
sweet,
Than ever yet had rung in any earthly dome.
Loud, shrilly, liquid, soft ; at that quick touch
Such modulation wooed his an<;el ears,
That Zophiel wondered, started from his couch,
And thought upon the music of the spheres.
But Zophiel lingers with ill dissembled
impatience, and Tahathyam leads the way
to where the elixir of life is to be surren
dered:
Soon through the rock they wind ; the draught di
vine
Was hidden by a -veil the king alone might lift.
Cephroniel's son, with half averted face
And fe' taring band, that curtain drew, and showed,
Of solid diamond formed, a lucid vase;
And warm within the pure elixir glowed ;
Bright red, like flame, and blood (could they so meet)
Ascending, sparkling, dancing, whirling, ever
In quick, perpetual movement ; and of heat
So hiirh, the rock was warm beneath their feet,
(Yet heat in its intenseness hurtful never,)
MARIA BROOKS.
77
Even to the entrance of the long arcade
Which led to that deep shrine, in the rock's hreast
As far as if the ha t-ange! were afraid
To know the secret he himse f possessed.
Tahathyam fi led a s ip of spar, with dread,
As if stood hy and frowned some power divine ;
Then trembling, as he turned to Zophiel, said,
" But for one service sha't thou call it thine ;
Bring me a wife ; as I have named the way
(I will not risk destruction save for love !) —
Fair-haired and beauteous, like my mother; say —
P jght me this pact ; so sha t thou bear above,
For thine own purpose, what has here been kept
Since b'.oomed the second age, to angels dear.
Bursting from earth's dark womb, the fierce wave
swept
Off every form that lived and loved, while here,
Deep hidden here, I still lived on and wept."
Great pains have evidently been taken to
have everything throughout the work in
keeping. Most of the names have been
selected for their particular meaning. Ta
hathyam and his retinue appear to have been
settled in their submarine dominion before
the great deluge that changed the face of the
earth, as is intimated in the-lines last quoted ;
and as the accounts of that judgment and of
the visits and communications of angels con
nected with it are chiefly in Hebrew, they
have names from that language. It would
have been better perhaps not to have called
the persons of the third canto gnomes, as at
this word one is reminded of all the varieties
of the Rosicrucian system, of which Pope has
so well availed himself in the Rape of the
Lock, which sprightly production has been
said to be derived, though remotely, from
Jewish legends of fallen angels. Tahathyam
can be called gnome only on account of the
retreat to which his erring father has con
signed him.
The spirits leave the cavern, and Zophiel
exults a moment, as if restored to perfect
happiness. But there is no way of bearing
his prize to the earth except through the
moKt dangerous depths of the sea.
Zophiel, with toil severe,
But bliss in view, through the thrice murky night,
Sped swiftly on. A treasure now more dear
He had to guard, than boldest hope had dared
To breathe for years ; but rougher grew the way ;
And soft Phraerion, shrinking back and scared [day,
^t every whirling depth, wept for his flowers and
Shivered, and pained, and shrieking, as the waves
Wildly impel them 'gainst the jutting rocks;
Not all the care and strength of Zophiel saves
His tender guide from half the wi'dering shocks
He bore. The calm, which favored their descent,
And bade them look upon their task as o'er,
W;is past; and now the inmost earth seemed rent
With such fierce storms as never raged before.
Of a long mortal life had the whole pain
Essenced in one consummate pang, been borne,
Known, and survived, it still would be in vain
To try to paint the pains felt by these sprites forli rn
The precious drop closed in its hollow spar,
Between his lips Zophiel in triumph bore.
Now, earth and sea seem shaken ! Dashed afar
He feels it part; — 'tis dropped : the waters roar,
He sees it in a sable vortex whirling,
Formed by a cavern vast, that neath the sea
Sucks the fierce torrent in.
The furious storm has been raised by the
power of his betrayer and persecutor, and in
gloomy desperation Zophiel rises with the
frail Phraerion to the upper air:
Black clouds, in mass deform,
Were frowning ; yet a moment's ca'm was there,
As it had stopped to breathe a while the storm.
Their white feet press the desert sod ; they shook
From their bright locks the briny drops ; nor stayed
Zophiil on ills, present or past, to look.
But his flight toward Medea is stayed by a
renewal of the tempest :
Loud and more loud the blast ; in mingled gyre
Flew lesves and stones, and with a deafening crash
Fell the uprooted trees ; heaven seemed on fire —
Not, as 'tis wont, with intermitting flash,
But, like an ocean all of liquid flame,
The who'e br.oad arch gave one continuous glare,
While through the red light from their prowling
came
The frighted beasts, and ran, but could not find a
lair.
At length comes a shock, as if the earth
crashed against some other planet, and they
are thrown amazed and prostrate upon the
heath. Zophiel —
in a mood
Too fierce for fear, uprose ; yet ere for flight
Served his torn wings, a form before him stood
In gloomy majesty. Like starless night,
A sable mantle fell in cloudy fold
From its stupendous breast ; and as it trod,
The pale and lurid light at distance rolled
Before its princely feet, receding on the sod.
The interview between the bland spirit and
the prime cause of his guilt is full of the en
ergy of passion, and the rhetoric of the con
versation has a masculine beauty of which
Mrs. Brooks alone of all the poets of her sex
was capable.
Zophiel returns to Medea and the drama
draws to a close, which is painted with con
jummate art. Egla wanders 'alone at t\vi
lighf in th° shadowy vistas of a grove, won
dering and sighing at the continued ansence
of the enamored angel, who approaches '.in
MARIA BROOKS.
seen while she sings a strain that he had
taught her.
His wings were folded o'er his eyes ; severe
As was the pain he 'd borne from wave arid wind,
The dubious warning of that being drear,
Who met him in the lightning, to his mind
Was torture worse ; a dark presentiment
Came o'er his soul with paralyzing chill,
As when Fate vaguely whispers her intent
To poison mortal joy with sense of coming ill.
He searched about the grove with all the care
Of tremb.ing jealousy, as if to trace
By track or wounded flower some rival there ;
And scarcely dared to look upon the face
Of her he loved, lest it some tale might tell
To make the only hope that soothed him vain :
He hears her notes in numbers die and swell,
But a most fears to listen to the strain
Himse f had taught her, lest some hated name
Had been with that dear gentle air enwreathed,
While he was far ; she sighed — he nearer came —
Oh, transport ! Zophiel was the name she breathed.
He saw her — but
Paused, ere he would advance, for very bliss.
The joy of a who'.e mortal life he felt
In that one moment. Now, too long unseen,
He fain had shown his beauteous form, and knelt,
But while he still delayed, a mortal rush'd between.
This scene is in the sixth canto. In the
fifth, which is occupied almost entirely by
mortals, and bears a closer relation than the
others to the chief works in narrative and
dramatic poetry, are related the adventures
of Zameia, which, with the story of her death,
following the last extract, would make a fine
tragedy. Her misfortunes are simply told by
an aged attendant who had fled with her in
pursuit of Meles, whom she had seen and
loved in Babylon. At the feast of Venus
Mylitta,
Full in the midst, and taller than the rest,
Zameia stood distinct, and not a sigh
Disturbed the gem that sparkled on her breast;
Her oval cheek was heightened to a dye
Th.it shamed the mellow vermeil of the wreath
Which in her jetty locks became her well,
And mingled fragrance with her sweeter breath,
The uhi'e her haughty lips more beautifully swell
With consciousness of every charm's excess ;
^While with becoming scorn she turned her face
From every eye that darted its caress,
As if some god a'.one might hope for her embrace.
Ai^ain she is discovered, sleeping, by the
rvky margin of a river:
Pa Mid and worn, but beautiful and young, [trace;
Though marked her charms by wildest passion's
Her long round arms, over a fragment flung,
From pillow all too rude protect a face
Whose dark and high arched brows gave to the
thought
To deem what radiance once they towered above
But all its proudly beauteous outline taught
That anger there had shared the throne of love.
It was Zameia that rushed between Zophiel
and Egla, and that now with quivering lip,
disordered hair, and eye gleaming with
phrensy, seized her arm, reproached her with
the murder of Meles, and attempted to kill
her. But as her dagger touches the white
robe of the maiden, her arm is arrested by
some unseen power, and she falls dead at
Egla's feet. Reproached by her own hand
maid and by the aged attendant of the prin
cess, Egla feels all the horrors of despair,
and, beset with evil influences, she seeks to
end her own life, but is prevented by the
timely appearance of Raphael, in the char
acter of a traveller's guide, leading Helon, a
young man of her own nation and kindred
who has been living unknown at Babylon,
protected by the same angel, and destined to
be her husband ; and to the mere idea of
whose existence, imparted to her in a mys
terious and vague manner by Raphael, she
has remained faithful from her childhood.
Zophiel, who by the power of Lucifer has
been detained struggling in the grove, is suf
fered once more to enter the presence of the
object of his affection. He sees her support
ed in the arms of Helon, whom he makes one
futile effort to destroy, and then is banished
for ever. The emissaries of his immortal en
emy pursue the baffled seraph to his place
of exile, and by their derision endeavor to
augment his misery :
And when they fled, he hid him in a cave [there,
Strewn with the bones of some sad wretch who
Apart from men, had sought a desert grave,
And yielded to the demon of despair.
There beauteous Zophiel, shrinking from the day,
Envying the wretch that so his life had ended,
Wailed his eternity ;
but, at last, is visited by Raphael, who gives
him hopes of restoration to his original rank
in heaven.
The concluding canto is entitled The Bridal
of Helon, and in the following lines it con
tains much of the author's philosophy of life:
The bard has sung, God never formed a soul
Without its owrn pecu'iar mate, to meet
Its wandering half, when ripe to crown the whole
Brnhtplan of bliss, most heavenly, most complete !
But thousand evil things there are that hate
To look on happiness ; these hurt, impede, [fate,
And, leagued with time, space, circumstance, and
Keep kindred heart from heart, to pine, and pant,
and bleed.
MARIA BROOKS.
And as the dove to far Palmyra flying,
From where her native founts of Antioch beam,
Weary, exhausted, longing, panting, sighing,
Lights sadly at the desert's bitter stream —
So many a soul, o'er life's drear desert faring,
Love's pure, congenial spring unfound, unquafFed,
Suffers, recoils — then thirsty and despairing
Of what it would, descends and sips the nearest
draught.
On consulting Zophiel, it will readily be
seen that the passages here extracted have
not. been chosen for their superior poetical
merit. It has simply been attempted by quo
tations and a running commentary to convey
a just impression of the scope and charactei
of the work. There is not perhaps in the
English language a poem containing a greater
variety of thought, description, and incident,
and though the author did not possess in an
eminent degree the constructive faculty, there
are few narratives that are conducted with
more regard to unities, or with more sim
plicity and perspicuity.
Though characterized by force and even
freedom of expression, it does not contain an
impure or irreligious sentiment. Every page
is full of passion, but passion subdued and
chas;ened by refinement and delicacy. Sev
eral of the characters are original and splen
did creations. Zophiel seems to us the finest
fallen angel that has come from the hand of
a poet. Milton's outcasts from heaven are
u.terly depraved and abraded of their glory;
bui Zuphiel has traces of his original virtue
and beauty, and a lingering hope of restora
tion to the presence of the Divinity. De
ceived by the specious fallacies of an immor
tal like himself, and his superior in rank, he
encounters the blackest perfidy in him for
whom so much had been forfeited, and the
blight of every prospect that had lured his
fancy or ambition. Egla, though one of the
most important characters in the poem, is
much less interesting. She is represented as
heroically cc nsistent, except when given over
for a moment to the malice of infernal emis
saries. In her immediate reception of Helon
as a husband, she is constant to a long cher
ished idea, and fulfils the design of her guard
ian spirit, or it would excite some wonder
that Zophiel was worsted in such competi
tion. It will be perceived upon a careful
examination that the work is in admirable
keeping, and that the entire conduct of its
several persons bears a just relation to their
characters and positions.
Mrs. Brooks returned to the United States,
and her son being now a student in the mil
itary academy, she took up her residence in
the vicinity of West Point, where, with oc
casional intermissions in which she visited
her plantation in Cuba or travelled in the
United States, she remained until 1839. Her
marked individuality, the variety, beauty, and
occasional splendor of her conversation, made
her house a favorite resort of the officers of
the academy, and of the most accomplished
persons who frequented that romantic neigh
borhood, by many of whom she will long be
remembered with mingled affection and ad
miration.
In 1834 she caused to be published in Bos
ton an edition of Zophiel, for the benefit of
the Polish exiles who were thronging to this
country after their then recent struggle for
freedom. There were at that time too few
readers among us of sufficiently cultivated
and independent taste to appreciate a work
of art which time or accident had not com
mended to the popular applause, and Zophiel
scarcely anywhere excited any interest or
attracted any attention. At the end of a
month but about twenty copies had been sold,
and, in a moment of disappointment, Mrs.
Brooks caused the remainder of the impres
sion to be withdrawn from the market. The
poem has therefore been little read in this
country, and even the title of it would have
remained unknown to the common reader of
elegant literature but for occasional allusions
to it by Southey and other foreign critics.*
In the summer of 1843, while Mrs. Brooks
was residing at Fort Columbus, in the bay of
New York — a military post at which her
son, Captain Horace Brooks, was stationed
several years — she had printed for private
circulation the remarkable little work to
which allusion has already been made, enti
tled Idomen, or The Vale of the Yumuri. It
is in the style of a romance, but contains lit
tle that is fictitious except the names of the
characters. The account which Idomen gives
of her own history is literally true, except in
* Mnria del Occidente is styled in "The Doc-tor &c,
"the most impassioned and most imnginntive ol (01 ppel
e««es " And without taking into account 9u*fta*i ardenti
Scattered here and thrre throughout her smirnh.r poein.
AerSundoubtedly .round tor the.tirst Han,, am . -th
the more accurate substitution of "fanciful lor imar
Sve" for the whole of the eulogy. It is altogether an ex
traordinary performance.— London Quarterly lieview.
Which [Zophiel] he [Southey] says ;s by some Yank*-
woman, as if there ever had been a womau capable o.
anything so great !— Charles Lamb
MARIA BROOKS.
ri-la ion to an excursion to Niagara, which
occurred in a different period of the author's
life. It is impossible to read these interest
ing "confessions" without feeling a profound
interest in the character which they illus
trate ; a character of singular strength, dig-
niiy, and delicacy, subjected to the severest
tests, and exposed to the most curious and
easy analyses. " To see the inmost soul of
one who bore all the impulse and torture of
self-murder without perishing, is what can
seldom be done : very few have memories
strong enough to retain a distinct impression
of past suffering, and few, though possessed
of such memories, have the power of so de
scribing their sensations as to make them ap
parent to another." Idomen will possess an
interest and value as a psychological study,
independent of that which belongs to it as a
record of the experience of so eminent a poet.
Mrs. Brooks was anxious to have published
an edition of all her writings, including Ido
men, before leaving New York, and she au
thorized me to offer gratuitously her copy
rights to an eminent publishing house for that
purpose. In the existing condition of the
copyright laws, which should have been en
titled acts for the discouragement of a native
literature, she was not surprised that the of
fer was declined, though indignant that the
reason assigned should have been that they
were "of too elevated a character to sell."
Writing to me soon afterward she observed:
"I do not think anything from my humble
imagination can be 'too elevated,' or ele
vated enough, for the public as it really is
in these North American states In the
words of poor Spurzheim, (uttered to me a
short time before his death, in Boston,) I sol
ace myself by saying, 'Stupidity ! stupidity!
the knott-li'dge of that alone has saved me
from misanthropy.' "
In December, 1843, Mrs. Brooks sailed the
last time from her native country for the
island of Cuba. There, on her coffee estate,
Hcrmita, she renewed for a while her litera
ry labors. The small stone building, smooth
ly plastered, with a flight of steps leading to
its entrance, in which she wrote some of the
cantos of Zophiel, is described by a recent
traveller* as surrounded by alleys of "palms,
cocoas, and oranges, interspersed with the
tamarind, the pomegranate, the mangoe, and
* The author of " Note* on Cuba."— Boston, 1844.
the rose-apple, with a back ground of coffee
and plantains covering every portion of the
soil with their luxuriant verdure. I have
often passed it," he observes, "in the still
night, when the moon was shining brightly,
and the leaves of the cocoa and palm threw
fringe-like shadows on the walls and the floor,
and the elfin lamps of the cocullos swept
through the windows and door, casting their
lurid, mysterious light on every object, while
the air was laden with mingled perfume from
the coffee and orange, and the tube-rose and
night-blooming ceres, and have thought that
no fitter birthplace could be found for the
images she has created."
Her habits of composition were peculiar.
With an almost unconquerable aversion to
the use of tjie pen, especially in her later
years, it was her custom to finish her shorter
pieces, and entire cantos of longer poems, be
fore committing a word of them to paper.
She had long meditated, and had partly com
posed, an epic under the title of Beatriz, the
Beloved of Columbus, and when transmit
ting to me the manuscript of The Departed,
in August, 1844, she remarked : " When I
have written out my Vistas del Infierno and
one other short poem, I hope to begin the
penning of the epic I have so often spoken
to you of: but when or whether it will ever
be finished, Heaven alone can tell." I have
not learned whether this poem was written,
but when I heard her repeat passages of it,
I thought it would be a nobler work than
Zophiel.
But little will be said here of the minor po
ems of Mrs. Brooks. They evince the same
power and passion — the imagination, fancy,
command of poetical language, and intense
feeling, which are so apparent in her chief
work. Many of them were written under the
pressure of extraordinary circumstances, and
these breathe of the fresh and deep emotions
by which they were occasioned. Others are
in a more eminent degree works of art, com
posed for the mere love of giving form to the
lights and shadows, and vague creations, of a
mind teeming with beauty. One of her latest
productions is the Ode to the Departed. She
wrote to me on the seventeenth of August,
1844, "I send you a poem which may possi
bly please you, as I remember your appro
val of a hymn of mine not dissimilar. On
the seventeenth of last April it was con
ceived and partly executed in the midst of a
MARIA BROOKS.
8!'
dearih such as had not for many years been
known in the island of Cuba. A late attempt
at insurrection had been followed by such
scenes and events as could not fail to call
forth thoughts and hopes of a future exist
ence, even if private sorrow had not before
awakened them." This poem, one written
about the same time under the title of Con
Vistas dd ////zerno, another To the Departed,
one on Revisiting Cuba, one to Painting, and
an Invocation to Poetry, are all that have
appeared in this stanza which was invented
by Mrs. Brooks, and was admirably suited to
the tone of her la'er compositions.
Mrs. Brooks died at Matanzas, in Cuba,
on the eleventh of November, 1845.
EXTRACTS FROM ZOPHIEL.
MOHXING.
How beauteous art thou, 0 thou morning sun ! —
The old man, feebly tottering forth, admires
As much thv beauty, now life's dream is done,
As when he moved exulting in his fires.
The infant strains his little arms to catch
The rays that glance about bis silken hair;
And L uxury hangs her amber lamps, to match [fair.
Thv face, when turned away from bower and palace
Sweet to the lip the draught, the blushing fruit ;
Music and perfumes mingle with the soul ;
How thrills the kiss, when feeling's voice is mute !
And light and beauty's tints enhance the whole.
Yet each keen sense were dulness but. for tbee :
Thy ray to joy, love, virtue, genius, warms ;
Thou never weariest ; no inconstancy
But comes to pay new homage to thy charms.
How many lips have sung thy praise, how long !
Yet, when his slumbering harp he feels tbee woo,
The pleasured bard pours forth another song,
And finds in tbee, like love, a theme for ever new.
Thy dark eyed daughters come in beauty forth,
In thy near realms ; and, like their snowwreaths fair,
The bright haired youths and maidens of the north
Smile in thy colors when thou art not there.
'Tis there tbou bidst a deeper ardor glow,
And higher, purer reveries completes! ;
As drops that farthest from the ocean flow,
Refining all the way, from springs the sweetest.
Haply, sometimes, spent with the sleepless night,
Some wretch, impassioned, from sweet morning s
breath,
Turns bis hot btow, and sickens at thy light ;
But Nature, <;\rer kind, soon heals or gives him
death.
VIRTUE.
Virtue ! how many as a lowly thing,
Born of weak folly, scorn thee ! but thy name
Alone they know ; upon thy soaring wing
They 'd fear to mount ; nor could thy sacred flame
Burn in their baser hearts : the biting thorn,
The flinty crag, flowers hiding, strew thy field ;
Yet blest is be whose daring bides the scorn
Of the frail, easy herd, and buckles on thy shield.
Who says thy ways are bliss, trolls but a lay
To lure the infant : if thy paths, to view,
Were always pleasant, Crime's worst sons would lay
Their da-jgers at thy feet, and, from mere sloth.
pu rsue.
6
LOVE.
What bliss for her who lives her little day,
In blest obedience, like to those divine,
Who to her loved, her earthly lord, can say,
" God is thy law, most just, and thou art min3."
To every blast she bends in beauty meek :
Let the storm beat — his arms her shelter kind —
And feels no need to blanch her rosy cheek
*Writh thoughts befitting his superior mind.
Who only sorrows when she sees him pained,
Then knows to pluck away Pain's keenest dart ;
Or bid Love catch it ere its goal be gained,
And steal its venom ere it reach his heart.
'T is the soul's food : the fervid must adore. —
For this the heathen, unsufficed with thought,
Moulds him an idol of the glittering ore,
And shrines his smiling goddess, marble wrought
What bliss for her, even in this world of wo,
Oh, Sire ! who makest yon orbstrewn arch thy
That sees thee in thy noblest work below [throne ;
Shine undefaced, adored, and all her own !
This I had hoped ; but hope, too dear, too great,
Go to thy grave ! — I feel thee blasted, now.
Give me Fate's sovereign, well to bear the fate
Thy pleasure sends : this, my sole prayer, allow !
LANGUAGE OF GEMS.
Look ! here's a ruby ; drinking solar rays,
I saw it redden on a mountain tip ;
Now on thy snowy bosom let it blaze :
'T will blush still deeper to behold thy lip !
Here 's for thy hair a garland : every flower
That spreads its blossoms, watered by the tear
Of the sad slave in Babylonian bower,
Might sec its frail bright hues perpetuate here.
For morn's light bell, this changeful amethyst •
A sapphire for the violet's tender blue ;
Large opals, for the queenrose zephyr kist ;
And here are' emeralds of every hue,
For folded bud and leaflet, dropped with dew
And here's a diamond, culled 'from Indian mine,
To gift a haughty queen : it might not be ;
I knew a worthier brow, sister divine,
And brought the gem ; for well I deem for tbee
The "arch cbymic sun" in earth's dark Inborn
wrought
To prison thus a ray, that when dull Night
Frowns o'er her realms, and Nature's all seem*
naught,
She whom be grieves to leave may still behold his
light.
82
MARIA BROOKS.
AMIITTlOy.
Wo to thce, wild Ambition ! I employ
Despair's low notes thy dread effects to tell ;
Born in high hea% en, her peace thou couldst destroy ;
And, but for thce, there had not been a hell.
Through the celestial domes thy clarion pealed ;
Angels, entranced, beneath thy banners ranged,
And straight were fiends ; hurled from the shrinking
They waked in agony to wail the change. [field,
Darting through all her veins the subtle fire,
Trie world's fair mistress first inhaled thy breath ;
To lot of higher beings learned to aspire ;
Dared to attempt, and doomed the world to death.
The thousand wild desires, that still torment
The fiercely struggling soul where peace once dwelt,
But perished ; feverish hope ; drear discontent,
Impoisoning all possessed — oh ! I have felt
As spirits feel — yet not for man we moan :
Scarce o'er the silly bird in state were he,
That builds his nest, loves, sings the morn's return,
And sleeps at evening, save by aid of thee.
Fame ne'er had roused, nor Song her records kept ;
The gem, the ore, the marble breathing life,
The pencil's colors, all in earth had slept,
Now see them mark with death his victim's strife.
Man found thee, Death : but Death and dull Decay,
Baffling, by aid of thee, his mastery proves ;
By mighty works he swells his narrow day,
And reigns, for ages, on the world he loves.
Yet what the price 1 With stings that never cease
Thou goadst him on ; and when too keen the smart,
His highest dole he 'd barter but for peace —
Food thou wilt have, or feast upon his heart.
MELES AXD EGLA CONTRASTED.
She meekly stood. He fastened round her arms
Rings of refulgent ore ; low and apart
Murmuring, "So, beauteous captive, shall thy charms
For ever thrall and clasp thy captive's heart."
The air's li<rht touch seemed softer as she moved,
In languid resignation ; his quick eye
Spoke in black glances how she was approved,
Who shrank reluctant from its ardency.
'Twas sweet to look upon the goodly pair
In their contrasted loveliness : her height
Might almost vie with his, but heavenly fair,
Of soil- proportion she, and sunny hair; [night.
He cast in manliest mould, with ringlets murk as
And oft. her drooping and resigned blue eye
She'd wistful raise to read his radiant face;
But then, why shrunk her heart? — a secret sigh
Told her it most required what there it could°not
trace.
EGLA RECLIXTXG.
Lone in the still retreat,
Wounding the (lowers to sweetness more intense,
Sue sank. Thus kindly Nature lets our wo
Swell till it bursts forth from the o'erfraught breast ;
Then draws an opiate from the bitter flow,
And lays her sorrowing child soft in the lap of Rest.
Now all the mortal maid lies-indolent
save one sweet cheek, which the cool velvet turf
Had touched too rude, though all with blooms be
sprent.
One soft arm pillowed. Whiter than the surf
That foams against the sea rock looked her neck
By the dark, glossy, odorous shrubs relieved,
That close inclining o'er her, seemed to reck
What 't was they canopied ; and quickly heaveii
Beneath her robe's white folds and azure zone,
Her heart yet incom posed ; a fillet through
Peeped softly azure, while with tender moan,
As if of bliss, Zephyr her ringlets blew
Sportive : about her neck their gold he twined •
Kissed the soft violet on her temples warm,
And eyebrow just so dark might well define
Its flexile arch — throne of expression' 9 charm.
As the vexed Caspian, though its rage be past,
And the blue smiling heavens swell o'er in peace,
Shook to the centre by the recent blast, [cease ;
Heaves on tumultuous still, and hath n^t power to
So still each little pulse was seen to throb,
Though passion and its pain were lulled to rest ;
And ever and anon a piteous sob
Shook the pure arch expansive o'er her breast.
AX ARCHER.
Rememberest thou
When to the altar, by thy father reared,
As we went forth with sacrifice and vow,
A victim dove escaped, and there appeared
A stranger ? Quickly from his shrilly string
He let an arrow glance ; and to a tree
Nailed last the little truant, by the wing,
And brought it. scarcely bleeding, back to thee.
His voice, his mien, the lustre of his eye,
And pretty deed he 'd done, were theme of praise;
Though blent with fear that stranger should espy
Thy lonely haunts. When, in the sunny rays
He turned and went, with black locks clustering
Around his pillar neck — " 'T is pity he," [bright
Thou saidst, " in all the comeliness and might
Of perfect man, 'tis pity he should be
But an idolator ! How nobly sweet
He tempers pride with courtesy ! A flow-er
Drops honey when he speaks. His sandaled feet
Are light as antelope's. He stands, a tower."
EGLA S COURAGE.
Despite of all, the starting tear,
The melting tone, the blood suffusive, proved
The soul that in them spoke could spurn at fear
Of death or danger ; and had those she loved
Required it at their need, she could have stood,
Unmoved, as some fair sculptured statue, while
The dome that guards it, earth's convulsions rude
Are shivering, meeting ruin with a smile.
SIGHIXG FOR THE V X ATTAIXA B Li..
'Tis as a vine of Galilee should say,
" Culturer, I reck not thy support, I sigh
For a young palm tree of Euphrates; nay,
Or let me him entwine, or in my blossom die."
LOVE'S SURGERY.
He who would gain
A fond, full heart — in love's soft surgery skilled,
Should seek it when 'tis sore ; allay its pain
With balm by pity prest : 'tis all his own so healed
MARIA BROOKS.
ODE ON REVISITING CUBA.
ISLE of eternal spring, thou'rt desolate
To me ; thy limpid seas, thy fragrant shores,
Whither I 've sighed to come
And make a tranquil home,
Have lost to me their charm ; my heart deplores,
Vainly, of two it loved the melancholy doom.
Well may I weep you, gentle souls, that, while
On earth, responded to the love of mine,
Through eyes of heavenly blue,
More deeply, fondly true,
Haply, than He, who lent his breath divine,
May give again on earth to cheer me with their
smile.
Mv George, if thcu hadst faults, they only were
That, thou wert gifted ill for this poor sphere
Where first he faints who spares
Earth's selfish, sordid cares ;
And what might fau'ts to baser eyes appear,
When ta'en where angels dwell, must be bright vir
tues there.
Men toil, betray, nay, even kill, for gold ;
But had some wretch pressed by misfortune sore
Asked thy last piece of thee
To ease his misery,
When thou couldst only look to Heaven for more,
That last piece had been given, and thine own safety
sold.
Oft when the noisome streams of pestilence
Poisoned the air around thee, hast thou stayed
By friends, while thirsty Death
Lurked near, to quaff their breath ;
And soothed and saved while others were afraid,
And hardier hearts and hands than thine rushed
wildly thence.
Oh, could I find thee in some palm leaf cot,
Still for this earth, with thy sweet brothers too,
Though scarce our worldly hoard
Sufficed a frugal board,
Hope should beguile no more : I 'd live for you,
Disclaim all other love — and sing, and bless my lot.
All other love ? — what love for me was e'er,
My Edgar, oh, my first born ! like to thine 1
Too faithful for thy state
Thou wert — too passionate —
Too vehement — devoted — Powers benign !
That thy last pain should pass, and I not by to
share !
Love speaks, 'tis said, but what eiitones his voice 1
Avarice, ambition, vanity, or oft
Sensations such as wake
Blind mole and mottled snake ;
Fierce with the cruel, gentle with the soft —
Promiscuous in their aim, — indifferent in their
choice.
Haply more often but the common wants,
That man with every mortal creature feels,
And satisfaction finds
Tn mantK as it binds
His neck, when cold ; or in those daily meals
Sufficing all the life lhat coldness leads or vaunts.
If one be lost, another serves as well ;
Another mantle, or another fair,
As well may be his own
If one dies his — alone
He sighs not long ; — enter his home, and there,
When past one little year, another fair will dwell.
Or see yon smiling Creole — her b'.ack hair
Braided and glittering, with one lover's gold.
Ere the quick flower has grown
O'er where he sleeps alone,
Already to some other lover so'd,
Or given, what both call love, and he's content to
share.
Better for those who love this world, to be
Even as such : a pure, pure flame, intense,
Edgar, as thine, consumes
The cheek its light illumes ; [hence,
And he whose heart enshrines such flame, must
And join with it, betimes, its own eternity.
For masculine or feminine gave naught
Of fuel to the hallowed fire, that burned
And urged thee on, of life.
Reckless, amid the strife
For worldly wealth, that better had been spurned :
Thy happiness and love, alas ! were all I sought.
How could I kneel and kiss the hand of Fate,
Were it but mine to decorate some hall —
Here, where the soil I tread
Colors my feet with red —
Far down these isles, to hear your voices call,
Then haste to hear and tell what happ'd while sep
arate !
Beautiful isles ! beneath the sunset skies
Tall si'ver shafted palm trees rise between
Full orange trees that shade
The living colonnade ;
Alas ! how sad, how sickening is the scene
That were ye at my side would be a paradise !
E'en one of those cool caves which, light and dry,
In many a leafy hillside, near this spot,
Seem as by Nature made
For shelter and for shade
To such as bear a homeless wanderer's lot,
Were home enough for me, could those I mourn
be nigh.
Pa1 ace or cave (where neath the blossom and lime
Winter lies hid with wreaths) alike may be,
If love and taste unite,
A dwelling for delight,
And kings might leave their silken courts, to see
O'er such wild, garnished grot, the grandiflora climb.
Thus, thus, doth quick eyed Fancy fondly wait
The pauses of my deep remorse between ;
Before my anxious eyes
'T is thus her pictures rise ;
They show what is not, yet what might have been ,
Angels, why came I not !— why have I come too
late !
The coolinb Severage— strengthening draught— as
craved
The needs of both, could but these hands ha»o
given ;
MARIA BROOKS.
Could I have watched tlie glow —
The pulse, too quick, (or slow —
My earnest, fond, reiterate prayers to Heaven,
Some angel might have come, besought, returned,
and saved.
To stay was imbecility — nay, more — [see
'T was crime — how yearned my panting heart to
When, by mere words de'ayed,
'Gainst the strong wish, I stayed,
(Trifling with that which in'y spoke to me,)
And longed, and hoped, and feared, till all I feared
was o'er !
Mi'd, pitying George, when map'e leaves were red
O'er Ladaiianna* in his much loved north,
Breathed here his last farewell—
And when the tears that fell
From April, caLed Mohecan'sf violets forth,
Edgar, as following his, thy friend 'y spirit fled.
Now, side by side, neath cross and tablet white
Is laid, sweet brothers, all of you that's left;
Yet. ail the tropic dew
Can damp, would seem not you :
Your finer particles from earth are reft,
Haply, (and so I 'il hope,) for lovelier forms of light.
Myriads of beings, (for the whole that's known
In all this world's combined philosophy,)
The eternal will obeyed,
To finish what was made, [and sea
When, warm with new breathed life, new earth
Returned the smile of Him who blessed them from
his throne.
Such beings, haply, hovering round us now,
When flesh or flowers in beauty fade or fall,
Gather each precious tint
Once seen to glow and glint,
With fond economy to gladden all :
Heaven's hands, howe'er profuse, no atom's loss
allow.
Yet, brothers, spirits, loiter if ye may
A little while, and look on all I do —
Oh ! loiter for my sake,
Ere other tasks ye take,
Toward all I should do influence my view.
Then haste, to hear the spheres chime with heaven's
favorite lay.
Go, hand in hand, to regions new and fair,
In shapes and colors for the scene arrayed —
With looks as bland and dear
As charms, bv glimpses, here.
Receive divine commissions; follow — aid
Those legions formed in heaven for many a guardian
care.
By every sigh, and throb, and painful throe,
Remembered but to heighten the delight
That crowns the advancing state
Of sou's emancipate —
Oh ! as I think of you, at lonely night,
Say to my heart, ye 're blest, and I can bear my wo.
Island of Cubu-Cafetel Hermitu, May 7, 1S-JO.
* I.RdRuanna. the aboriginal name of the St. Lawrence.
1 Mohecan, the aboriginal luune of the Hudson.
ODE TO THE DEPARTED.
"Con I'ittat del Cic/o."
THE dearth is sore: the orange leaf is curled,
There's dust upon the marble o'er thy tomb.
My Edgar, fair and dear ;
Though the fifth sorrowing year
Hath past, since first I knew thine early doom,
I see thee still, though death thy being hence hath
hurled.
I could not bear my lot, now thou art gone —
With heart o'ersoftened by the many tears
Remorse and grief have drawn —
Save that a gleam, a dawn,
\ Haply, of that -which lights thee now,) appears,,
To unveil a few fair scenes of life's next coming
morn.
What — where is heaven 1 (earth's sweetest lips ex-
In all the holiest seers have writ or said, [claim ;)
Blurred are the pictures given:
We know not what is heaven,
Save by those views, mysteriously spread,
When the soul looks afar by light of her own flame.
Yet all our spirits, while on earth so faint,
By glimpses dim, discern, conceive, or know,
The Eternal Power can mould
Real as fruits or gold —
Bid the celestial, roseate matter glow, [paint.
And forms more perfect smile than artists carve or
To realize every creed, conceived
In mortal brain, by love and beauty charmed,
Even like the ivory maid
Who, as Pygmalion prayed,
Oped her white arms, to life and feeling warmed,
Would lightly task the power of life's great Chief
believed.
If Grecian Phidias, in stone like this,
Thy tomb, could do so much, what can not he
Who from the cold, coarse clod,
By reckless laborer trod,
Can call such tints as meeting seraphs see,
And give them breath and warmth like true love's
soulfelt kiss 1
Wild fears of dark annihilation, go !
Be warm, ye veins, now blackening with despair !
Years o'er thee have revolved,
My firstborn — thou'rt dissolved —
All — every tint — save a few ringlets fair —
Still, if thou didst not live, how could I love thee so?
Quick as the warmth which darts from breast to
When lovers, from afar, each other see, [breast,
Haply, thy spirit went,
Where mine would fain be sent,
To take a heavenly form, designed to be
Meet dwelling for the soul thine azure eye exprest
Thy deep blue eye ! say, can heaven's bliss exceed
The joy of some brief moments tasted here 1
Ah ! could I taste again —
Is there a mode of pain
Which, for such guerdon, could be deemed severe 1
Be ours the forms of heaven, and let rne bend an-1
bleed !
MARIA BROOKS.
To be in place, even like some spots on earth,
in those sweet moments when no ill comes near ;
Where perfumes round us wreathe,
And the pure air we breathe
Nerves and exhilarates ; while all we hear
60 tells content and love, we sigh and bless our birth.
To clasp thee, Edgar, in a fragrant shape
Of fair perfection, after death's sad hour,
Known as the same 1 've prest,
Erst, to this aching breast —
The same — but finished by a kind, bland Power,
Which only stopped thy heart to let thy soul es
cape —
Oh ! every pain that vexed thy mortal life,
Nay, even the lives of all who round thee lie :
Be this one bliss my share,
The whole condensed I '11 bear —
Bless the benign creative hand — and sigh,
And kneel, to ask again the expiatory strife ! —
Strife, for the hope of making others blest,
Who trespassed only that they were not brave
Enough to hear or take
Pains, even for pity's sake ;
Strife, for the hope to wake, incite, and save,
Even those who, dull with crime, know not fair
honor's zest,
If, in the pauses of my agony,
(Be it or flame, stab, scourge, or pestilence,)
If, fresh and blest, as dear,
Thou 'It come in beauty, near —
Speak, and with looks of love charm my keen sense,
I '11 deem it heaven enough even thus to feel and
see!—
To feel my hand wrenched, as with mortal rack ;
Then see it healed, and ta'en, and kindly prest ;
And fair as blossoms white
Of cerea in the night ;
While tears, that fall upon thy spotless breast,
Are sweet as drops from flowers touched in thy
heavenly track !
In form to bear nor stain nor scar designed —
Yes ! let me kneel to agonize again :
Ask every torment o'er
More poignant than before ;
Of a whole world the price of a whole pain,
Were small for such blest gifts of matter and of mind !
Comes a cold doubt — that still thou art alive,
Edgar, my heart tells while these numbers thrill.
Yet of a bliss so dear,
And as death's portal's near,
I feel mt- too unworthy : dreary Time
I fear must bear his part ere Hope her plight fulfil !
Time, time was meet (so many a sacred scroll
Has told and tells) ere light was bid to smile ;
Ere yet the spheres, revealed,
Gave music, as they wheeled ;
Warm, rife, eternal love-*-a time — a while —
Brooded and charmed, and ranged till chaos gloomed
no more.
As time was needful ere a world could bloom
With forms of flowers and flesh, haply must wait
Some spirits ; and lingering still,
Of deeds both good and ill
Mark the effect in intermediate state, [tomb.
And think, and pause, and weep, even over their own
Be it so : if thin as fragrance, light, or heat,
Thine essence, floating on the ambient air,
Can, with freed intellect,
View every deed's effect,
Read, even my heart, in all its pantings bare :
When denser pulses cease, how sweet, even thus,
to meet !
To roam those deep green aisles, crowned with tall
And weep for all who tire of toil and ill, [palms.,
While moons of winter bring
Their blossoms fair as spring ;
To move unseen by all we've left, and will
Such influence to their souls as half their pain be
calms ; —
On deep Mohccan's mounts to view the spot
Where, as these arms were oped to clasp thee, came
The tidings, dread and cold,
I never more might hold
Thy pulsing form, nor meet the gentle flame
Of thy lair eyes, till mine for those of earth were not;
On precipice where the gray citadel
Hangs over Ladaiianna's billows clear,
How sweet to pause and view,
As erst, the far canoe ;
To glide by friends, who know not we are near,
And hear them of ourselves in tender memory tell ;
Or where Niagara with maddening roar
Shakes the worn cliff, haply to flit, and ken
Some angel, as he sighs
With pleasure at the dyes
Of the wild depth, while to the eyes of men
Invisible we speak by signs unknown before ;
Or, far from this wild western world, where dwelt
That brow whose laurels bore a leaf for mine,
W'hen, strong in sympathy,
Thy sprite shall roam with me,
Edgar, mid Derwent's flowers, one soul benign
May to thy soul impart the joy I there have felt !
What though " imprisoned in the viewless winds,"
Mid storms and rocks, like earthly ship, were
Unsevcred while we 're blent, [dashed •
We '11 bear in sweet content
The shock of falling bolt or forest craohed,
While thoughts of hope and love nerve well oui
mystic minds.
Wafted or wandering thus, souls may be found
Or ripe for forms of heaven, or for that state
Of which, when angels think,
Or saints, they weep and shrink ;
And oft, to draw, 01 save from such dread f;ite,
Are fain their beauteous heads to dash 'gainst blood
stained ground.
Freed from their earthly gyves, if spirits laugh
And shriek with horrid joy, when victims bleeil
Or suffer, as we view
Mortals in vileness do,
The Eternal and his court may keep their meed
Of joy : far other cups fell thirsty Guilt must quaff '
Qfl
MARIA BROOKS.
Oh, Edgar ! spirit, or on earth or air,
Seen, or impalpable to artist's sketch,
In essence, or in form,
In bliss, pain, calm, or storm.
Let us, wherever met a suffering wretch,
Task every power to shield and save him from de
spair !
Nature hath secrets mortals ne'er suspect :
At s:»nc we glance, while some are sealed in night ;
The optician, by his skill,
Even now can show, at will,
Long absent pheers, in shapes of moving light:
If man so much can do, what can no- Heaven ef
fect !
Shade, image, manes, all the ancient priest
Told to his votarists in fraud or zeal,
May be, and might have been,
By means and arts we ween
No more of, in this age : for wo or weal
Of man, full much foreknown to this late race hath
ceased.
That souls may take ambrosial forms in heaven,
A dawning science half assures the hope:
These forms may sleep and smile
Midst heaven's fresh roses, while
Their spirits, free, roam o'er this world's whole scope
For pleasure and for good, Heaven's full permission
I have not sung of meeting those we've loved,
Or known, and listening to then- accents meek,
While, pitying all they 've pained
On earth, while passion reigned,
To wreak redress upon themselves they seek,
And bless, for each stern deed, the pain they now
have proved.
I have not sung of the first, fairest court,
Of all those mansions ; of the heavenly home,
Of which the best hath told
Who e'er trod earthly mould ;
To courts of earthly kings the fairest come,
Haply, to show faint types of this supreme resort !
Haply, the Sire of sires may take a form
And give an audience to each set unfurled
With bands of sympathy,
Wreathen in mystery,^
Round those who've known each other in this
world,
Perfecting all the rest, and breathing beauty warm.
Kssence. ]i<'ht. heat, form, throbbing arteries
To deem each possible, enough I see !
Ed^ar, thou knowest I wait:
Guard my expectant state — •
Console me, as I bend in prayers for thee
Aid me, even as thou mayst, both Heaven and thee
to pi.
This song to thee alone ! though he who shares
Thy bed of stone, shared well my love with thee ;
Vet. in bis noble heart
Another bore a part,
Whilst thou bailst never other love than me:
Sprites, brothers, manes, shades, present my tears
and prayers !
IV.riei- isliiml of Cuba, July 24. 1644.
HYMN.
SIRK, Maker, Spirit, who alone cans know
My soul and all the deep remorse that's there —
I ask no mitigation of my wo ;
Yet pity me, and give me strength to bear !
Remorse ? — ah ! not for ill designedly done :
To look on pain, to me is pain severe ;
Yet, yet, dear forms which Death from me hath won,
Had Love been Wisdom, haply ye were here !
Much have I suffered ; yet this form, unscathed,
Declares thy kind protection, by its thrift :
With secret dews the wounded plant is bathed ;
My ills are my desert, my good thy gift.
Three years are flown since my sore heart bereft
Hath mourned for two, ta'en by the powers on high,
Nor tint nor atom that is fair is left
Beneath the marble where their relics He.
Yet no oblivious veil is o'er them cast :
Blent with my blood, the sympathetic glow
Burns brighter now their mortal lives yre past,
Than when, on earth, I felt their joy and wo.
Oh ! may their spirits, disembodied, come,
And strong though secret influence dispense — •
Pitying the sorrows of an earthly doom,
And smoothing pain with sweet beneficence.
Oh ! cover them with forms so made to meet
The models of their souls, that, when they see,
They cast themselves in beauty at thy feet,
In all the heaven of grateful ecstasy.
Methinks I see them, side by side, in love,
Like brothers of the zodiac, all around
Diffusing light and fragrance, as thev move
Harmonious as the spheric music's sound.
And may these forms in warm and rosy sleep,
(In some fair dwelling for such forms assigned,)
Lie, Wiiilc o'er air, earth, sea, their spirits sweep,
Quick as the changeful glance of thought and mind.
This fond ideal which my grief relieves,
Father, beneath thy throne may live, may be :
For more than all my feeble sense conceives,
Thy hand can give in blest reality.
Sire, Maker, Spirit! source of all that's fair!
Howe'er my poor words be unworthy theo,
Oh ! be not weary of the imperfect prayer
Breathed from the fervor of a wretch like me !
THE MOON OF FLOWERS.
On, moon of flowers ! sweet moon of flowers !*
Why dost thou mind me of the hours
Which flew so softly on that night
When last I saw and felt thy light 1
Oh, moon of flowers! thou moon cf flowers!
Would thou couldst give me back those houra '
Since which a dull, cold year has fled,
Or show me those with whom they sped !
Oh, moon of flowers ! oh, moon of flowers !
fn scenes afar were passed those hours,
Which still with fond regret I see,
And wish my heart could change like thee !
* The ?nva>;38 of the northern part of America some
times count bj moons. May theycnll the moon of flowers
MARIA BROOKS.
TO THE RIVER ST. LAWRENCE.
THE first time I beheld thee, beauteous stream,
How pure, how smooth,ho w broad thy bosom heav'd !
What feelings rushed upon my heart ! — a gleam
As of another life my kindling soul received.
Fair was the day, and o'er the crowded deck
Joy shone in many a smile ; light clouds, in hue
As silvery as the new fledged cygnet's neck,
Cast, as they moved, faint shadows on the blue,
Soft, deep, and distant, of the mountain chain,
Wreathing and blending, tint with tint, and traced
So gently on the smiling sky. In vain
Time, scene, has changed : 't will never be effaced.
Now o'er thy tranquil breast the moonbeams quiver :
How calm the air, how still the hour — how bright !
Would thouwert doom'd to be my grave, sweet river !
How blends my soul with thy pure breath to-night !
The dearest hours that soul has ever known
Have been upon thy brink : would it could wait,
And, parted, watch thce still ! — to stay and moan
With thee, were better than my promised fate.
Ladaiianna ! monarch of the north !
Father of streams unsung, be sung by me !
Receive a lay that flows resistless forth !
Oh, quench the fervor that consumes, in thee !
I've seen more beauty on thy banks, more bliss,
Than I had deemed were ever seen below ;
Dew falls not on a happier land than this ;
Fruits spring from desert wilds, and love sits thron'd
on snow;
Snows that drive warmth to shelter in the heart ;
Snows that conceal, beneath their moonlit heaps,
Plenty's rich embryo; fruits and flowers that start
To meet their full grown Spring, as strong to earth
he leaps.
How many grades of life thou view'st ! thy wave
Bears the dark daughter of the woods, as light
She springs to her canoe, and wildly grave
Views the Great Spirit mid the fires of night.
A hardy race, sprung from the Gaul, and gay,
Frame their wild songs and sing them to the oar ;
And think to chase the forest fiends away,
WThere yet no mass bell tink'.es from the shore.
The pensive nun throws back the veil that hides
Her calm, chaste eyes; straining them long, to mark
When the mist thickens, if perchance there bides
The peril, wildering on, some little bark :
And trims her lamp and hangs it in her tower;
Not as the priestess did of old ; (she's driven
To do that deed by no fierce passion's power,)
But kind y, ca'mly, for the love of Heaven.
Who had been lost, what heart from breaking saved,
She knows not, thinks not ; guided by her star,
Some being leaps to shore : 'twas all she craved ;
She makes the holy sign, and blesses him from far.
The plaided so'dier, in his mountain pride
Exulting, as he treads with statelier pace,
Views his white limbs reflected in thy tide,
While wave the sable plumes that shade his manly
face.
The song of Ossian mingles with thy gale,
The harp of Carolan's remembered here;
The bright haired son of Erin tells his tale,
Dreams of his misty isle, and drops for her a tear
Thon'st seen the trophies of that deathless day,
Whosename brightglancefromev'ry Briton brings,
When half the world was marshalled in array,
And fell the great, self nurtured " king of kings.'"
Youthful Columbia, ply thy useful arts;
Rear the strong nursling that thy mother bore,
Ca'led Liberty. Thy boundless fields, thy marts.
Enough for thee : tempt these brown rocks no more ;
Or leave them to that few, who, blind to gold,
And scorning pleasure, brave with higher zest
A doubtful path ; mid pain, want, censure, bold
To pant one fevered hour on Genius' breast.
Nature's best loved, thine own, thy virtuous West
Chose for his pencil a Canadian sky :
Bade Death recede, who the fallen victor prest,
And made perpetuate his latest sigh.*
Sully, of tender tints transparent, fain
I would thy skill a while ; for Memory 's showing
To prove thy hand the purest of thy train,
A native beauty from thy pencil glowing.
Or he who sketched the Cretan : gone her Greek,
She, all unconscious that he's false or flying,
Sleeps, while the light blood revels in her cheek
So rosy warm, we listen for her sighing.t
Could he paint beauty, warmth, light, happiness,
Diffused around like fragrance from a flower —
And melody — all that sense can bless,
Or soul concentrate in one form — his power
I'd ask. But Nat\*e, Nature, when thou wilt,
Thou canst enough to make all art despair;
Guard well the wondrous model thou hast built,
Which these, thy nectared waves, reflect and love
to bear.
Nature, all powerful Nature, thine are ties
That seldom break : though the heart beat so cold,
That Love and Fancy's fairest garland dies —
Though false, though light as air — thy bonds may
hold.
The mother loves her child ; the brother yet
Thinks of his sister, though for years unseen ;
And seldom doth the bridegroom quite forget
Her who ha%. Ablest him once, though seas may
roll between.
But can a friendship, pure and rapture wrought,
Endure without such bonds'? I'll deem it may.
And bless the hope it nurtures : beauteous thought
Howe'er fantastic ! — dear illusion — stay !
Oh stream, oh country of my heart, farewell !
Say, shall I e'er return? shall I once more —
Ere'close these eyes that looked to love — ah, foil
Say, shall I tread again thy fertile shore ?
Else, how endure my weary lot — the strife
To gain content when far — the burning sigh*-
The asking wish — the aching void ? Oh, life !
Thou art, and hast been, one long sacrifice !
* In allu-ion to \\Vst'.* celebrated picture. "The P«Mtb
of Wolfe." t Vuiderlyn— eee his picture of "Ariadne
MARIA BROOKS.
TO NIAGARA.
SPHUT of Homer! thou whose so:rj: has rung
From thine own Greece to this supreme abode
Of Nature — this great fanc of Nature's God —
Breathe on my brain ! oh, touch the fervid tongue
Of a fond votaress kneeling on the sod !
Sublime and Beautiful! your chapel's here —
Here, 'nealh the a/.ure dome of heaven, ye 're wed;
Here, on this rock, which trembles as I tread,
Your blended sorcery claims both pulse and tear,
Controls life's source and reigns o'er heart and head.
Terrific, but, oh, beautiful abyss!
If I should trust my fascinated eye,
Or hearken to thy maddening melody, [ki?s,
Sense, form, would spring to meet thy white foam's
Be lapped in thy soft rainbows once, and die !
Color, depth, height, extension — all unite
To chain the spirit by a look intense !
The dolphin in his clearest seas, or thence
Ta'en, for some queen, to deck of ivory white,
Dies not in changeful tints more delicately bright.
Look, look ! there comes, o'er yon pale green ex-
Bevond the curtain of this altar vast, [panse,
A glad young swan ; the smiling beams that cast
Light from her plumes, have lured her soft advance ;
She nears the fatal brink : her graceful life has past !
Look up ! nor her fond, foolish fate disdain :
An eagle rests upon the wind's sweet breath ;
Feels he the charm 1 woos he the scene beneath 1
He eyes the sun; nerves his dark wing again;
Remembers clouds and storms, yet flies the lovely
death.
" Niagara ! wonder of this western world,
And half the world beside ! hail, beauteous queen
Of cataracts !" — an angel, who had been [furled,
O'er heaven and earth, spoke thus, his bright wings
And knelt to Nature first, on this wild cliff unseen.
WRITTEN ON SEEING PHARAMOND.
HAD the blest fair, who gave thee birth,
Lived where ^Egean waves are swelling,
Ere \et calm Reason came to earth,
Warm Fancy's lovelier reign dispelling,
Tbe Sire of heaven, she had believed,
T<> stamp thy form had ta'en another,*
And all who saw had been deceived,
And given the Delphic god a brother.
And many a classic page had told
Ofnymphi and goddesses admiring:
Altars, libations, harps of gold,
And milkwhite hecatombs expiring.
And oh ! perchance there had remained
Some Pbidian wonder — still, still breathing
Love, life, and charms — past, but retained —
And warmth and bliss had still seemed wreathing
•Softly around the heaven touched stone,
As now a light seems from thee beaming;
While thought, sense, lost in looks alone,
Grow dubious if awake or dreaming.
* In allusion to the fable of Jupiter and Alcmena.
And must thou pass 1 nor picture show,
Nor sculpture, what my lyre is telling,
Too feeble lyre ! as mom's bright glow
Fades o'er the river near thy dwelling !
Spirit of Titian ! hear and come,
If come thou may'st, a moment hither ;
Leave thy loved Italy, thy home —
Oh ! let but one acanthus wither
Round her loved ruins, while thou stayest ;
Come to these solitudes, and view them :
Must Genius ne'er their beauties taste,
Nor tear of rapture ever dew them] —
View the dark rock, the melting blue
Of mount and sky so soft embracing ;
The bright, broad stream : But beauty, hue,
Life, form, are here — all else effacing.
Nature, to mock the forms of bliss
Which fervid mortals have created,
From their own souls' excess, made this,
And gazed at her own powers elated.
Fragrant o'er all the western groves
The tall magnolia towers unshaded,
But soon no more the gale he loves
Faints on his ivory flowers ; they 're faded.
The fullblown rose, mid dewy sweets,
Most perfect dies ; but, soon returning,
The next born year another greets,
When summer fires again are burning.
Another rose may bloom as sweet,
Other magnolias ope in whiteness —
But who again fair scenes shall meet
The like of him who lends you brightness 1
Come, then, my lyre — ere yet ajrain
Fade these fresh fields I shall forsake them ;
But some fond ear may hear thy strain,
When all is cold which thus can wake them.
PRAYER.
SIRE of the universe — and me —
Dost thou reject my midnight prayer !
Dost thou withhold me even from thee,
Thus writhing, struggling 'gainst despair !
Thou knowest the source of feeling's gush,
Thou knowest the end for which it flows :
Then, if thou bidst the tempest rush,
Ah ! heed the fragile bark it throws !
Fain would my heaving heart be still —
But Pain and Tumult mock at rest :
Fain would I meekly meet thy will,
And kiss the barb that tears my breast
Weak I am formed, I can no more —
Weary I strive, but find not aid ;
Prone on thy threshold I deplore,
But ah ! thy succor is delayed.
The burning, beauteous orb of day,
Amid its circling host upborne,
Smiles, as life quickens in its ray :
What would it, were thy hand withdrawn !-
Scorch — devastate the teeming whole
Now glowing with its warmth divine !
Spirit, whose powers of peace control
Great Nature's heart, oh ! pity mine !
MARIA BROOKS.
SONG.
DAT, in melting purple dying,
Blossoms, all around me sighing,
Fragrance, from the lilies straying,
Zephyr, with my ringlets playing,
Ye hut waken my distress ;
I am sick of loneliness
Thou, to whom I love to hearken,
Come, ere night around me darken ;
Though thy softness but deceive me,
Say thoti'rt true, and I'll believe thee;
Veil, if ill, thy soul's intent —
Let me think it innocent !
Save thy toiling, spare thy treasure :
All I ask is friendship's pleasure ;
Let the shining ore lie darkling,
Bring no gem in lustre sparkling :
Gifts and gold are naught to me ;
I would only look on thee !
Tell to thee the high wrought feeling,
Ecstasy but in revealing ;
Paint to thee the deep sensation,
Rapture in participation,
Yet but torture, if comprest
In a lone, unfriended breast.
Absent still ! Ah ! come and bless me !
Let these eyes again caress thee ;
Once, in caution, I could fly thee :
Now, I nothing could deny thee ;
In a look if death there be,
Come, and I will gaze on thee !
FRIENDSHIP.
To MEET a friendship such as mine,
Such feelings must thy soul refine
As are not oft of mortal birth :
'Tis love without a stain of earth,
Fratello del mio cor.
Looks are its food, its nectar sighs,
Its couch the lips, its throne the eyes,
The soul its breath : and so possest,
Heaven's raptures reign in mortal breast,
Fratello del mio cor.
Though Friendship be its earthly name,
Purely from highest heaven it came ;
'T is seldom felt for more than one,
And scorns to dwell with Venus' son,
Fratello efe/ mio cor.
Him let it view not, or it dies
Like tender hues of morning skies,
Or morn's sweet flower of purple glov» ,
When sunny beams too ardent grow,
Fratello del mio cor.
A charm o'er every object plays ;
All looks so lovely, while it stays,
So softly forth in rosier tides
The vital flood ecstatic glides,
Fratello del mio cor,
That, wrung by grief to see it part,
A very life drop leaves the heart :
Such drop, I need not tell thee, fell,
While bidding it, for thee, farewell !
^ra.teih^ del mio cor.
FAREWELL TO CUBA.
ADIEU, fair isle ! I love thy bowers,
I love thy dark eyed daughters there ,
The cool pomegranate's scarlet flowers
Look brighter in their jetty hair.
They praised my forehead's stainless white'
And when I thirsted, gave a draught
From the full clustering cocoa's height,
And smiling, blessed me as I quaffed.
Well pleased, the kind return I gave.
And clasped in their embraces' twine,
Felt the soft breeze, like Lethe's wave,
Becalm this beating heart of mine.
Why will my heart so wildly beat ?
Say, seraphs, is my lot too blest,
That thus a fitful, feverish heat
Must rifle me of health and resi 1
Alas ! I fear my native snows —
A clime too cold, a heart too warm-
Alternate chills, alternate glows —
Too fiercely threat my flower like form.
The orange tree has fruit and flowers ;
The grendilla, in its bloom,
Hangs o'er its high, luxuriant bowers,
Like fringes from a Tyrian loom.
When the white coffee blossoms swell,
The fair moon full, the evening long,
I love to hear the warbling bell,
And sunburnt peasant's wayward song-
Drive gently on, dark muleteer,
And the light seguidilla frame ;
Fain would I listen still, to hear
At every close thy mistress' name.
Adieu, fair isle ! the waving palm
Is pencilled on thy purest sky ;
Warm sleeps the bay, the air is balm,
And, soothed to languor, scarce a sigk
Escapes for those I love so well,
For those I 've loved and left so long ;
On me their fondest musings dwell,
To them alone my sighs belong.
On, on, my bark ! blow, southern Dieeze .
No longer would I lingering stay ;
'T were better far to die with these
Than live in pleasure far away
JULIA RUSH WARD.
(Born 1796 -Died 1824).
Miss JULIA RUSH CUTLER, the daughter
of the late Mr. B. C. Cutler, of Boston, was
born in that city on the fifth of January, 1796.
Her maternal ancestors were of South Caro-
li ia, and her grandmother was the only sis-
t'-r of the famous partisan leader, General
Francis Marion. Miss Cutler was married
on the ninth of October, 1812, when she was
;n the seventeenth year of her age, to the late
Mi. Samuel Ward, of New York, whose name
was lung conspicuous for his relations with
the commercial world, and who in private
I'll- was eminent for all the virtues that
dignify human nature. Mrs. Ward came to
.New York to reside at a time when Irving,
Paulding, Cooper, and others, were making
their first an.1 most brilliant essays in litera
ture, and hor fine abilities, improved by the
best culture, brought into her circle the wits
and men of genius in the city, who soon
perceived that she needed but provocation to
claim rank as a star of mild but pervading
lustre in their brightest constellations.
The compositions of Mrs. Ward are of the
class called occasional poems, written with
grace and sincerity, with a sort of impromptu
ease, and from a heart full of truth and a
mind to which beauty was familiar as the air.
She died on the ninth of November, 1824,
leaving the inheritance of her genius to her
daughter, whose literary character is exhib
ited in another part of this volume.
"SI JE TE PERDS, JE SUIS PERDU."*
THK tempest howls, the waves swell high,
Upward I cast my anxious eye,
And fix my gaze, amidst the storm,
I "poii thy bright and heavenly form.
Angel of mercy ! beam to save ;
See. tossing OM the furious wave,
My litte bark is sorely prest :
( )!i, guide me to some port of rest;
Shine on, and all my fears subdue,
Hi jr. ff perdu, je suis perdu.
To catch the ray, my aching sight
Shall pierce the gloomy mists of night;
But it', amidst the driving storm,
Dark clouds should hide thy glittering form,
In vain each swelling wave I breast,
Which rushes on with foaming crest'
Mid the wild breakers' furious roar,
O'envhelmed, I sink to rise no more.
Shine out to meet my troubled view,
•N/ je te perds, je suis perdu.
Then if T catch the faintest gleam,
Onward I'll rush beneath the beam,
And fast the wingrd waves shall bear
My form upon the midnight air,
•\or know my breast one anxious fear —
For 1 am safe if thou art near.
* Written on st-dini the device on a seal, of a man
piidinir a small boat, with his eye fixed on a star, and
this uiottc- : '' t>i je te perds. je suis perdu."
Lead onward, then, while I pursue,
Si je te perds, je suis perdu.
50 may the Star of Bethlehem's beam
With holy lustre mildly gleam,
To guide my soul with sacred light
Amidst the gloom of error's night ;
Its cheering ray shall courage give —
Midst seas of doubt my hope shall live ;
Though dark and guilty fears may storrn,
Bright peers above its radiant form :
Though seen by al1, yet sought by few,
51 je te perds, je suis perdu.
Within my heart the needle lies,
That upward points me to the skies :
The tides may swell, the breakers roar,
And threaten soon to whelm me o'er —
Their wildest fury I defy :
While on that Star I keep my eye,
My tremb'ing bark shall hold her way,
Still guided by its sacred ray,
To whose bright beam is homage due,
Si je fe perds, je suis perdu.
Soon to illume those threatening skies,
The Sun of Righteousness shall rise,
And on my soul his glories pour:
Securely then my bark I'll moor
Within that port where all are blest —
The haven of eternal rest.
Shine onward, then, and guide me through
Sije te perds, je suis perdu.
90
LYDIA H. S1GOURNEY.
(Born 1791-Diecl 1865).
LYDIA HTJNTLEY, now Mrs. SIGOURNEY,
was born on the first of September, 1791, in
Norwich, Connecticut, a town of which she
has furnished an agreeable picture in her
Sketch of Connecticut Forty Years Since,
and of which she says in one of her poems,
Sweetly wild
Were the scenes that charmed me when a child :
Rocks, gray rocks, with their caverns dark,
Leaping rills, like the diamond spark,
Torrent voices thundering by
When the pride of the vernal floods swelled high,
And quiet roofs like the hanging nest
Mid cliffs, by the feathery foliage drest.
Almost from infancy she was remarkable
for a love of knowledge, and facility in its
acquisition. She read with fluency when
but three years of age, and at eight she wrote
verses which attracted attention among the
acquaintances of her family. After comple
ting her education, at a boarding school in
Hartford, she associated herself with Miss
Hyde, (of whose literary remains she was
subsequently the editor,) and opened a school
for girls at Norwich, which was continued
successfully two years. At the end of this
period she removed to Hartford, where she
also pursued the business of teaching. Some
of her early contributions to the journals hav
ing attracted the attention of the late Daniel
Wadsworth,* a wealthy and intelligent gen
tleman of that city, he induced her to collect
and publish them in a volume, which ap
peared in 1815, under the modest title of
Moral Pieces in Prose and Verse, which very
well indicates its general character. None
of i'ts contents are deserving of special com
mendation, but they are all respectable, and
the volume procured her an accession of rep
utation whic. was probably of much indirect
advantage.
In 1819 Miss Huntle\ was married to Mr.
Charles Sigourney, a reputable merchant and
hanker of Hartford, and she did not appear
* Mr. Wadsworth, to whose early perception nn 1 libe-
erai encouragement of the abilities of Miss Huntiey \ve
me perhaps indebted for their successful devotion to lit
erature, died at Hartford on the 28th of July, 1848— since
the above paragraphs were written. The Wadsworth Ath-
rrittmm and the Wadswortb Tower are pleasing incmori-
•1s to the people of Hartford of his taste and liberality.
again as an author until 1822, when she pub
lished in Cambridge her Traits of the Abo
rigines of America, a descriptive, historical,
and didactic poem, in five cantos. It is a
sort of poetical discourse upon the discovery
and settlement of this continent, and the du
ties of its present masters toward the abo
rigines, but it is too discursive to produce
the deep impression which might have been
made with such a display of abilities, learn
ing, and just opinions. Its tone is dignified
and sustained, and it contains passages of
considerable power and beauty, though few
that can be separated from their contexts
without some injustice to the author. The
condition of the Indian before the invasion
of the European is thus forcibly sketched in
the beginning of the first canto :
O'er the vast regions of that western world,
Whose lofty mountains hiding in the clouds,
Concealed their grandeur and their wealth so long
From European eyes, the Indian roved
Free and unconquercd. From those frigid plains
Struck with the torpor of the arctic pole,
To where Magellan lifts his torch to light
The meeting of the waters ; from the shore
Whose smooth green line the broad Atlantic laves,
To the rude borders of that rocky strait
Where haughty Asia seems to stand and gaze
On the new continent, the Indian reigned
Majestic and alone. Fearless he rose,
Firm as his mountains ; like his rivers, wild ;
Bold as those lakes whose wondrous chain controls
His northern coast. The forest and the wave
Gave him his food ; the slight constructed hut
Furnished his shelter, and its doors spread wide
To every wandering stranger. There his cup,
His simple meal, his lowly couch of skins.
Were hospitably shared. Rude were his toils,
And rash his daring, when he head Ion? rushed
Down the steep precipice to seize his prey ;
Strong was his arm to bend the stubborn bow,
And keen his arrow. This the bison knew,
The spotted panther, the rough, shaggy bear,
The wolf dark prowling, 'tin- eye piercing lynx,
The wild deer bounding through the shadowy glade,
And the swift eagle, soaring high to make
His nest among the stars. Clothed in their spoils
He dared the elements: with eye sedate.
Breasted the wintry winds ; o'er the white heads
Of angry torrents steered his rapid bark
Light as their foam ; mounted with tireless speed
Those slippery dirts, where everlasting snows
Weave their dense robes ; or laid him down to sl<*^-
91
LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
Whore the dread thunder of the cataract lulled
His drowsy sense. The dangerous toils of war
He sought and loved. Traditions, and proud tales
Of other days, exploits of chieftains bold,
Dauntless and terrible, the warrior's song,
The victor's triumph — all conspired to raise
The martial spirit
Oft the rude, wandering tribes
Rushed on to battle. Their aspiring chiefs,
Lofty and iron framed, with native hue
S'rangely disguised in wild and glaring tints,
Frowned like some Pictish king. The conflict raged
Fearless and fierce, mid shouts and disarray,
As the swift lightning urges its dire shafts [blasts
Through clouds and darkness, when the warring
Awaken midnight. O'er the captive foe
T nsated vengeance stormed : flame and slow wounds
Racked the strong bonds of life ; but the firm soul
Smiled in its fortitude to mock the rage
Of its tormentors ; when the crisping nerves
Were broken, still exulting o'er its pain,
To rise unmurmuring to its father's shades,
Where in delightful bowers the brave and just
Rest and rejoice
Yet those untutored tribes
Bound with their stern resolves and savage deeds
Some gentle virtues ; as beneath the gloom
Of overshadowing forests sweet'-.- springs
The unexpected flower Their uncultured hearts
(ia\e a strong soil for friendship, that bold growth
Of generous affection, changeless, pure,
Self sacrificing, counting losses light,
And yielding life with gladness. By its side,
Like sister plant, sprang ardent Gratitude,
Vivid, perennial, braving winter's frost
And summer's heat ; while nursed by the same dews,
Unbounded reverence for the form of age
Struck its deep root spontaneous With pioui awe
Their eyes up'ifted sought the hidden path
)f the Great Spirit. The loud midnight storm,
The rush of mighty waters, the deep roll
Of thunder, gave his voice ; the golden sun,
The soft einj'gence of the purple morn,
The gentle rain distilling, was his smile,
Dispensing good to alL.lln various forms arose
Their superstitious homage. Some with blood
Of human sacrifices sought to appease
That aimer which in pestilence, or dearth,
Or famine, stalked; and their astonished vales,
Like Carthaginian altars, frequent drank
The Irorrib'e libation. Some, with fruits,
Sweet flowers, and incense of their choicest herbs,
Sought to propitiate Him whose powerful hand
Unseen sustained them. Some with mystic, rites,
The ark, the orison, the paschal feast,
Through dimmerin^ tradition seemed to bear,
.As in s,,me broken vase, the smothered coals
Scattered from Jewish altars.
Oft hi- nylons which first greeted the Scan
dinavian discoverer she says:
There Winter frames
1 he boldest architecture, rears strong towers
Of rugged frostwork, and deep laboring throws
A glas-sv ]vivement o'er rude tossing floods.
Long near this coast he lingered, half illumed
By the red gleaming of those fitful flames
Which wrathful Hecla through her veil of snows
Darts on the ebon night. Oft he recalled,
Pensive, his simple home, ere the New World,
Enwrapped in po'ar robes, with frigid eye
Received him, and in rude winds hoarsely hailed
Her earliest guest. Thus the stern king of storms,
Swart Eolus, bade his imprisoned blasts
Breathe dissonant welcome to the restless queen,
Consort of Jove, whose unaccustomed step
Invaded his retreat. The pilgrim band
Amazed beheld those mountain ramparts float
Around their coast, where hoary Time had toiled,
Even from his infancy, to point sublime
Their pyramids, and strike their awful base
Deep 'neath the main. Say, Darwin, Fancy's son !
What armor shall he choose who dares complete
Thine embassy to the dire kings who frown
Upon those thrones of frost 1 what force compel
Their abdication of their favored realm
And rightful royalty ? what pilot's eye,
Unglazed by death, direct their devious course
(Tremendous navigation !) to allay
The fervor of the tropics ] Proudly gleam
Their sparkling masses, shaming the brief dome
Which Russia's empress queen bade the chill boor
Quench life's frail lamp to rear. Now they assume
The front of old cathedral gray with years;
Anon their castellated turrets glow
In high baronial pomp ; then the tall mast
Of lofty frigate, peering o'er the cloud,
Attracts the eye ; or some fair island spreads
Towns, towers, and mountains, cradled in a flood
Of rainbow lustre, changeful as the web
From fairy loom, and wild as fabled tales
Of Araby.
At the close of the poem is a large body of
curious and entertaining notes, scarcely ne
cessary for its illustration, but welcome as
a collection of well written and instructive
miscellanies upon the various subjects inci
dentally suggested or referred to in it.
In 1824 Mrs. Sigourney published in prose
A Sketch of Connecticut Forty Years Since ;
in 1827, Poems by the author of Moral Pieces;
in 1833, Poetry for Children ; in 1 834, Sketch
es, a collection of prose tales and essays; in
1835, Zinzindorf and other Poems; in 1836,
Letters to Young Ladies : and, in 1838, Let
ters to Mothers. In the summer of 1840 she
went to Europe, and after visiting many of
the most interesting places in England, Scot
land, and France, and publishing a collection
of her works in London, she returned in the
following April to Hartford.
In 1841 appeared her Select Poems, em
bracing those which best satisfied her own
judgment in previous volumes, and in the
same year, with many other pieces, Poca-
hontas, the best of her long poems, and much
LYDIA H. SIGOURNE\.
the best of the many poetical compositions
of which the famous daughter of Powhatan
has been the subject. Pucahontas is in the
Spenserian measure, which is used with con
siderable felicity, as will be seen from the
following description of the heroine in early
womanhood, while the thoughtful beauty for
which she is celebrated is ripening to its most
controlling splendor:
On sped the seasons, and the forest child
Was rounded to the symmetry of youth ;
While o'er her features stole, serenely mild,
The tremb.ing sanctity of woman's truth,
Her modesty, and simpleness, and grace :
Yet those who deeper scan the human face,
Amid the trial hour of fear or ruth,
Might clearly read, upon its heaven writ scroll,
That high and firm reso.ve which nerved the Roman
soul.
The simple sports th at charm'dher childhood's way,
Her greenwood gambols mid the matted vines,
The curious glance of wild and searching ray,
Where innocence with ignorance combines,
Were changed for deeper thought's persuasive air,
Or that high port a princess well might wear :
So fades the doubtful star when morning shines ;
So melts the young dawn at the enkindling ray,
And on the crimson cloud casts off its mantle gray.
Though Pocahontas is the most sustained of
Mrs. Sigourney 's poems, the contents of this
volume do not altogether exhibit any deeper
thought, or finer fancy, or larger command
of poetical language, than some of her pro
ductions that had been many years before the
public.
In 1842 she published Pleasant Memories
of Pleasant Lands, the records, in prose and
verse, of impressions made during her tour
in Europe. Two years af.erward this was
followed by a similar work under the title of
Scenes in my Native Land; and in 1846, by
Mvrti*, with other Etchings and Sketchings.
The most complete and elegant edition of her
poems was published by Carey and Hart, with
illustrations by Darley, in 1848.
Mrs. Sigourney has acquired a wider and
more pervading reputation than many women
will receive in this country. The times have
been favorable for her, and the tone of her
works such as is most likely to be accepta
ble in a primitive and pious community.
Though possessing but little constructive
power, she has a ready expression, and an
ear naiurally so sensitive to harmony that it
lias scarcely been necessary for her to study
the principles of versification in order to
produce some of its finest, effects. She sings
impulsively from an atmosphere of affection
ate, pious, and elevated sentiment, rather
than from the consciousness of subjective
ability. In this respect she is not to be com
pared with some of our female poets, who
exhibit an affluence of diction, a soundness
of understanding, and a strength of imagina
tion, that justify the belief of their capability
for the highest attainments in those fields of
poetical art in which women have yet been
distinguished. Whether there is in her na
ture the latent energy and exquisite suscep
tibility that, under favorable circumstances,
might have \varmed her sentiment into pas
sion, and her fancy into imagination ; or
whether the absence of any deep emotion
and creative power is to be attributed to a
quietness of life and satisfaction of desires
that forbade the development of the full force
of her being ; or whether benevolence and
adoration have had the mastery of her life,
as might seem, and led her other faculties
in captivity, we know too little of her secret
experiences to form an opinion : but the abil
ities displayed in Napoleon's Epitaph and
some other pieces in her works, suggest that
it is only because the flower has not been
crushed that we have not a richer perfume.
The late Mr. Alexander H. Everett, in a
reviewal of the works of- Mrs. Sigourney,
published a short time before his departure
for China, observes that " they express with
great purity and evident sincerity the tender
affections which are so natural to the female
heart, and the lofty aspirations after a higher
and better state of being which constitute the
truly ennoblingtind elevating principle in art
as well as nature. Love and religion are the
unvarying elements of her song.. ..If her pow
ers of expression were equal to the purity and
elevation of her habits of thought and feeling,
she would be a female Milton or a Christian
Pindar. But though she does not inherit
' The force and :xm]ile pinion that the TUeban eagles bear,
Sailing with supreme dominion through the liquid vaults of air,'
she nevertheless manages language with ease
and elegance, and often with much of the
curiosa felicitas, that 'refined felicity' of
expression, which is, after all, the principal
charm in poetry. In blank verse she is very
successful. The poems that she has written
in this measure have not unfrequently much
of the manner of Wordsworth, and may be
nearly or quite as highly relished by his ad
mirers."
LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
THE WESTERN EMIGRANT.
Ax axe rang sharply mid those forest shades
Which from creation toward the sky had towered
In unshorn beauty. There, with vigorous arm,
Wrought a bold emigrant, and by his side
His little son, with question and response,
Bejuiled the toil. " Boy, thou hast never seen
Such glorious trees. Hark, when their giant trunks
Fall how the linn earth groans ! Remcrnberest thou
The miglitv river, on whose breast we sailed
So many d.iys, on toward the setting sun ]
Our own Connecticut, compared to that,
Was but a creeping stream." — " Father, the brook
That by our door went sinking, where I launched
My tiny boat, with my young playmates round
Whe.i school was o'er, is dearer far to me
Thau al t'.iese bold, broad waters. To my eye
Tuey are as strangers. And those little trees
My mother nurtured in the garden bound
Of our first homo, from whence the fragrant peach
Hung in its ripening go'd, were fairer, sure,
Than this dark forest, shutting out the day."
— " What, ho ! my little girl," and with light step
A fairy creature hasted toward her sire,
And, setting down the basket that contained
His noon repast, looked upward to his face
With sweet, confiding smi'e. « See, dearest, see,
That bright winged paroquet, and hear the song
Of yon gay red bird, echoing through the trees,
Making rich music. Didst thou ever hear,
In far New England, such a mellow tone?"
— " I had a robin that did take the crumbs
Each night arid morning, and his chirping voice
Did make me joyful as I went to tend
My snowdrops. I was always laughing then
In that first home. I should be happier now,
Methinks, if I cou'd find among these dells
The same fresh violets." Slow night drew on,
And round the rude hut of the emigrant
The wrathful spirit of the rising storm
Spake bitter things. His weary children slept,
And lie, with head declined, sat listening long
To the swollen waters of the Illinois,
Dashing against their shores. Starting, he spake :
<< Wife ' did I see thee brush away a tear]
'T was oven so. Thy heart was with the halls
Of thy nativity. Their sparkling lights,
Carpets and sofas, and admiring guests,
LYlit thee better than these rugged walls
Of sha;,ele>s logs, and this lone, hermit home."
— •' No, no. All was so still around, methought
Upon mine ear that echoed hymn did steal,
Which mid the church, where erst we paid ourvows,
So tuneful pea Yd. But tenderly thy voice
Dissolved the i.Iusion." And the gentle smile
Lighting her brow, the fond caress that soothed
Her wakin-r infant, reassured his soul
That, whoresoe'er our best affections dwell,
And strike a healthful root, is happiness.
Content and placid, to his rest he sank ;
But driMms. tho-v wi'd magicians, that do play
Such pranks when reason slumbers, tireless wrought
Their will with him. Up rose the thronging mart
'If his own native city — roof and spire,
All glittering bright, in fancy's frostwork ray.
The steed his boyhood nurtured proudly neighed,
The favorite dog came frisking round his feet
With shrill and joyous bark; familiar doors
Flew open ; greeting hands with his were linked
In friendship's grasp ; he heard the keen debate
From congregated haunts, where mind with minu
Doth blend and brighten : and till morning roved
Mid the loved scenery of his native land.
THE PILGRIM FATHERS.
How slow yon lonely vessel ploughs the main !
Amid the heavy billows now she seems
A toi.ing atom ; then from wave to wave
Leaps madly, by the tempest lashed, or reels [wane,
Half wrecked thro' gulfs profound. Moons wax and
But still that patient traveller treads the deep.
— I see an icebound coast toward which she steers
With such a tardy movement, that it seems
Stern Winter's hand hath turned her keel to stone,
And sealed his victory on her slippery shrouds.
— They land ! they land ! not like the Genoese,
With glittering sword, and gaudy train, and eye
Kindling with golden fancies. Forth they come
From their long prison, hardy forms that brave
The world's unkindness, men of hoary hair,
Maidens of fearless heart, and matrons grave,
Who hush the wailing infant with a g'ance.
B'eak Nature's desolation wraps them round,
Eternal forests, and unyielding earth,
And savage men, who through the thickets peer
With vengeful arrow. What could lure their steps
To this drear desert 1 Ask of him who left
His father's home to roam through Haran's wilds,
Distrusting not the guide who called him forth,
Nor doubting, though a stranger, that his seed
Shou'd be as ocean's sands. But yon lone bark
Hatli spread her parting sail ; they crowd the strand,
Those few, lone pilgrims. Can ye scan the wo
That wrings their bosoms, as the last frail link,
Binding to man and habitable earth,
Is severed 1 Can ye tell what pangs were there,
With keen regrets; what sickness of the heart,
What yearnings o'er their forfeit land of birth,
Their distant dear ones ] Long, with straining eve,
They watch the lessening speck. Heard ye no shriek
Of anguish, when that bitter lone'iness
Sank down into their bosoms '? No ! they turn
Back to their dreary, famished huts, and pray !
Pray, and the ills that haunt this transient life
Fade into air. Up in each girded breast
There sprang a rooted and mysterious strength,
A loftiness to face a world in arms,
To strip the pomp from sceptres, and to lay
On Duty's sacred a'tar the warm blood
Of s'ain affections, should they rise between
The soul and GOD. 0 ye, who proudly boast,
In your free veins, the blood of sires like these,
Look to their lineaments. Dread lest ye lose
Their likeness in your sons. Shou'd Mammon cling
Too close around your heart, or wealth beget
That bloated luxury which eats the core
From manly virtue, or the tempting world
LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
95
Make faint the Christian purpose in your soul,
Turn ye to Plymouth rock, and where they knelt
Kneel, and renew the vow they breathed to God.
WINTER.
I DEEM thee not unlovely, though thou comest
With a stern visage. To the tuneful bird,
The blushing floweret, the rejoicing stream,
Thy discipline is harsh. But unto man
Mcthinks thou hast a kindlier ministry.
Thy lengthened eve is full of fireside joys,
And deathless linking of warm heart to heart,
So that the hoarse storm passes by unheard.
Earth, robed in white, a peaceful sabbath holds,
And keepeth si'ence at her Maker's feet.
She ceaseth from the harrowing of the plough,
And from the harvest shouting. Man should rest
Thus from his fevered passions, and exhale
The unbreathed carbon of his festering thought,
And drink in holy hea'th. As the tossed bark
Doth seek the shelter of some quiet bay
To trim its scattered cordage, and restore
Its riven sai's — so should the toilworn mind
Refit for Time's rough voyage. Man, perchance,
Soured by the world's sharp commerce, or impaired
By the wild wanderings of his summer way,
Turns like a truant scholar to his home,
And yields his nature to sweet influences
That purify and save. The ruddy boy [sport,
Comes with his shouting schoolmates from their
On the smooth, frozen lake, as the first star
Hangs, pure and cold, its twinkling cresset forth,
And, throwing off his skates with boisterous glee,
Hastes to his mother's side. Her tender hand
Doth shake the snowflakes from his glossy curls,
And draw him nearer, and with gentle voice
Asks of his lessons, while her lifted heart
Solicits silently the Sire of heaven
To " b'ess the lad." The timid infant learns
Better to love its sire, and longer sits
Upon his knee, and with a velvet lip
Prints on his brow such language as the tongue
Hath never spoken. Come thou to life's feast
With dove eyed Meekness, and b'and Charity,
And thou shalt find even Winter's rugged blasts
The minstrel teacher of thy well tuned soul,
And when the last drop of its cup is drained —
Arising with a song of praise — go up
To the eternal banquet.
NIAGARA.
FLOW on, for ever, in thy glorious robe
Of terror and of beauty. Yea, flow on
Unfathomed and resistless. God hath set
His rainbow on thv forehead, and the cloud
Mantled around thy feet. And he doth give
Thy voice of thunder power to speak of him
Eternal'y — bidding the lip of man
Keep silence — and upon thy rocky altar pour
Incense of awe struck praise. Ah ! who can dare
To lift the insect trump of earthly hope,
Or love, or sorrow, mid the peal sublime
Of thy tremendous hymn 1 Even Ocean shrinks
Back from thy brotherhood : and all his waves
Retire abashed. For he doth sometimes seem
To sleep like a spent laborer, and recall
His wearied billows from their vexing play,
And lull them to a cradle calm: but thou,
With everlasting, undecaying tide,
Dost rest not, night or day. The morning stars,
When first they sang o'er young Creation's birth.
Heard thy deep anthem ; and those wrecking fires,
That wait the archangel's signal to dissolve
This solid earth, shall find JEHOVAH'S name
Graven, as with a thousand diamond spears,
Of thine unending volume. Every leaf,
That lifts itself within thy wide domain,
Doth gather greenness from thy living spray,
Yet tremble at the baptism. Lo ! yon birds
Do boldly venture near, and bathe their wing
Amid thy mist and foam. 'T is meet for them
To touch thy garment's hem, and lightly stir
The snowy leaflets of thy vapor wreath,
For they may sport unharmed amid the cloud,
Or listen at the echoing gate of heaven,
Without reproof. But as for us, it seems
Scarce lawful, with our broken tones, to speak
Famr'iarly of thee. Methinks, to tint
Thy glorious features with our pencil's point,
Or woo thee to the tablet of a song,
Were profanation. Thou dost make the soul
A wondering witness of thy majesty,
But as it presses with delirious joy
To pierce thy vestibule, dost chain its step,
And tame its rapture, with the humbling view
Of its own nothingness, bidding it stand
In the dread presence of the Invisible,
As if to answer to its God through thee.
THE ALPINE FLOWERS.
MEEK dwellers mid yon terror stricken cliffs !
With brows so pure, and incense breathing lips,
Whence are ye 1 Did some white winged messenger
On Mercy's missions trust your timid germ
To the cold cradle of eternal snows 1
Or, breathing on the callous icicles,
Did them with tear drops nurse ye ? —
— Tree nor shrub
Dare that drear atmosphere ; no polar pine
Uprears a veteran front ; yet there ye stand,
Leaning your cheeks against the thick ribbed ice,
And looking up with brilliant eyes to Him
Who bids you bloom unblanched amid the waste
Of desolation. Man, who, panting, toils
O'er slippery steeps, or, trembling, treads the verge
Of yawning gulfs, o'er which the headlong plunge-
Is to eternity, looks shuddering up,
And marks ye in your placid -loveliness —
Fearless, yet frail — and, clasping his chill hand?,
Blesses your pencilled beauty. Mid the pomp
Of mountain summits rushing on the sky,
And chaining the rapt soul in breathless awe,
He bows to bind you drooping to his breast,
Inhales your spirit from the frost winged gale
Anl freer dreams of heaven.
LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
N A V ( ) L K O X' S E P I T APR.
sh'.no out, and there we .«nw tl.e face of
in-, eliaracterl**. unintcribttl."
A vii who shall write thine epitaph, thou man
Of mystery and might ! Shall orphan hands
Inscribe it with their father's broken swords'?
Or the wa m trickling of the widow's tear
Channel it slowly mid the rugged rock,
As the keen torture of the water drop [ghosts
Doth wear the sentenced hr.iin 1 Shall countless
Arise I'.-.MII hade-;, and in luri.l flame
With shad nvy linger trace thine effigy,
Who s ,'iit the.rn to their audit unannealed,
\nd with hut that brief space fir shrift of prayer
Given at tin- cannon's mouth 1 Thou, who didst sit
Like eag!e on the apex of the globe,
And bear the murmur of its conquered tribes,
As chirp the weak voiced nations of the grass,
Why art thou sepulchred in yon far isle,
1 on little speck, which scarce the mariner
Descries mid ocean's foam 1 Thou, who didst hew
A pathway for thy host above the cloud,
Guiding their footsteps o'er the frostwork crown
Ot the throned Alps, why dost thou sleep unmarked,
Even by such slight memento as the hind
Carves on his own coarse tombstone 1 Bid the
throng
WTho poured thee incense, as Olympian Jove,
And breathed thy thunders on the battle field,
Return, and rear thy monument. Those forms
O'er the wide valleys of red slaughter spread,
From pole to tropic, and from zone to zone,
Heed n >t thy clarion call. But should they rise,
As in the vision that the prophet saw,
And each dry bone its severed fellow find,
Piling their pillared dust as erst they gave
Their souls for thee, the wondering stars mightdeem
A second time the puny pride of man
Did creep by stealth upon its Babel stairs,
To dwe'l with them. But here unwept thou art,
Like a dead lion in his thicket lair,
With neither living man nor spirit condemned
To write thine epitaph. Invoke the climes,
Who served as playthings in thy desperate game
Of mad ambition, or their treasures strewed
Till meagre Famine on their vitals preved,
To pay the reckoning. France! who gave so free
Thy life stream t » his cup of wine, and saw
That purple vintage shed over ha'f the earth,
Wn'/r the first lint'., if than tmxt blond to spare.
Thou, too, whose pride did deck dead Caesar's tomb,
And rh-iiit high requiem o'er the tyrant hand
Who had their birth with thee, lend us thine arts
Of sculpture and of classic eloquence,
To grace his obsequies at whose dark frown
Thin* ancient spirit ((nailed, and to the list
)f mutilated kings, who gleaned their meat
TVeath A -.jug's table, add the name of Rome.
- Turn. Austria! iron browed and stern of heart,
And on his monument, to whom thou gavest
In anger, battle, and in craft a bride,
Grave - Auster'itz," and fiercely turn away.
—As the reined war h:)rse snulls the trumpet blast,
Rouse Prussia fijtii h«r trance with Jena's name
And bid her witness to that fame which soars
O'er him of Macedon, and shames the vaunt
Of Scandinavia's madman. From the shades
Of lettered ease, oh, Germany ! come forth
With pen of fire, and from thy troubled scroll,
Such as thou spreadst at Leipsic, gather tints
Of deeper character than bold Romance
Hath ever imaged in her wildest dream.
Or History trusted to her sybil leaves.
— Hail, lotus crowned ! in thy green childhood fed
By stiff necked Pharaoh and the shepherd kings,
Hast thou no tale of him who drenched thy sands
At Jaffa and Aboukir ! when the flight
Of rushing souls went up so strange and strong
To the accusing Spirit ? — Glorious isle !
Whose thrice enwreathed chain, Promethean like,
Did bind him to the fatal rock, we ask
Thy deep memento for this marble tomb.
— Ho ! fur clad Russia ! with thy spear of frost,
Or with thy winter mocking Cossack's lance,
Stir the cold memories of thy vengeful brain,
And give the last line of our epitaph.
— But there was silence : for no sceptred hand
Received the challenge. From the misty deep,
Rise, island spirits ! like those sisters three
Who spin and cut the trembling thread of life —
Rise on your coral pedestals, and write
That eulogy which haughtier climes deny.
Come, for ye lulled him in your matron arms,
And cheered his exile with the name of king,
And spread that curtained couch which none disturb,
Come, twine some trait of househo'd tenderness,
Some tender leaflet, nursed with Nature's tears,
Around this urn. — But Corsica, who rocked
His cradle at Ajaccio, turned awuy ;
And tiny E ba in the Tuscan wave
Threw her slight annal with the haste of feu'r;
And rude Helena, sick at heart, and gray
'Neath the Atlantic's smiting, bade the moon,
With silent finger, point the traveller's gaze
To an unhonored tomb. — Then Earth arose,
That blind old empress, on her crumb ing throno,
And to the echoed question, " Who shall write
NAPOLEOV'S epitaph 1" as one who broods
O'er unforgiven injuries, answered, " None !'
DEATH OF AN INFANT.
DEATH found strange beauty on that polished
brow,
And dashed it out. There was a tint of rose
On cheek and lip. He touched the veins with ice,
And the rose faded. Forth from those blue eyes
There spake a wishful tenderness, a doubt
Whether to grieve or sleep, which innocence
Alone may wear. With ruthless haste he bound
The silken fringes of those curtaining lids
For ever. There had been a murmuring sound
With which the babe would claim its mother's ear,
Charming her even to tears. The spoiler set
The seal of si'.ence. But there beamed a smile,
So fixed, so holy, from that, cherub brow,
Death gazed, and left it there. He dared not steal
The signet ring of Heaven.
LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
MONODY ON MRS. HEMANS.
N \ T i- u K doth mourn for thec. There comes a voice
From her far so:itudes, as though the winds
Murmured low dirges, or the waves complained.
Even the meek plant, that never sang hefore,
Save one brief requiem, when its b'ossoms fell,
Seems through its drooping leaves to sigh for thee,
As for a florist dead. The ivy, wreathed
Round the gray turrets of a buried race,
And the proud palm trees, that like princes rear
Their diadems 'neath Asia's sultry sky,
Blend with their ancient lore thy hallowed name.
Thy music, like baptismal dew, did make
Whate'er it touched more holy. The pure shell,
Pressing its pearly lip to Ocean's floor ;
The cloistered chambers, where the seagods sleep ;
And the unfathomed, melancholy Main,
Lament for thee through all the sounding deeps.
Hark ! from sky piercing Himmaleh, to where
Snowdon doth weave his coronet of cloud —
From the scathed pine tree, near the red man's hut,
To where the everlasting Banian builds
Its vast columnar temple, comes a wail
For her who o'er the dim cathedral's arch,
The quivering sunbeam on the cottage wall,
Or the sere desert, poured the lofty chant
And ritual of the muse : who found the link
That joins mute Nature to ethereal mind,
And make that link a me'ody. The vales
Of glorious Albion heard thy tuneful fame, [hards
And those green cliffs, where erst the Cambrian
Swept their indignant lyres, exulting tell
How oft thy fairy foot in childhood climbed
Their rude, romantic heights. Yet was the couch
Of thy last s' umber in yon verdant isle
Of song, and eloquence, and ardent soul —
Which, loved of lavish skies, though banned by fate,
Seemed as a type of thine own varied lot,
The crowned of Genius, and the child of Wo.
For at thy breast the ever pointed thorn
Did gird itself in secret, mid the gush
Of such unstained, sublime, impassioned song,
That angels, poising on some silver c'oud,
Might listen mid the errands of the skies,
And linger all unblamed. How tenderly
Dolh Nature draw her curtain round thy rest,
And, like a nurse, with finger on her lip,
Watch that no step disturb thee, and no hand
Profane thy sacred harp. Methinks she waits
Thy wakina, as some cheated mother hangs
O'er the pale babe, whose spirit Death hath stolen,
And laid it dreaming on the lap of Heaven.
Said we that thou art dead ! We dare not. No.
For every mountain, stream, or shady dell,
Where thy rich echoes linger, claim thee still,
Their own undying one. To thee was known
Alike the language of the fragile flower
And of the burning stars. God taught it thee.
So, from thy living intercourse with man,
Thou sha't not pass, until the weary earth
Drops her last gem into the doomsday flame.
Thou hast but taken thy seat with that blest choir,
Whose harmonies thy spirit learned so well
Through this low, darkened casement, and so long
Interpreted for us. Why should we say
Farewell to t'.iee, since every unborn age
Shall mix thee with its household charities ?
The hoary sire shall bow his deafened ear,
And greet thy sweet words with his henison •
The mother shrine thee -as a vestal flame
In the lone temple of her sanctity ;
And the young child who takes thee by the hand,
Shall travel with a surer step to heaven.
THE MOTHER OF WASHINGTON.*
LONG hast thou slept unnoted. Nature stole
In her soft ministry around thy bed,
Spreading her vernal tissue, violet gemmed,
And pearled with dews.
She bade bright Summer bring
Gifts of frankincense, with sweet song of birds,
And Autumn cast his reaper's coronet
Down at thy feet, and stormy Winter speak
Stern'y of man's neglect. But now we come
To do thee homage — mother of our chief!
Fit homage — such as honoreth him who pays.
Methinks we see thee — as in olden time —
Simple in garb — majestic and serene,
Unmoved by pomp or circumstance — in truth
Inflexible, and with a Spartan zeal
Repressing vice and making folly grave.
Thou didst not deem it woman's part to waste
Life in inglorious sloth — to sport a while
Amid the flowers, or on the summer wave;
Then fleet, like the ephemeron, away,
Building no temple in her children's hearts,
Save to the vanity and pride of life
Which she had worshipped.
For the might that clothed
The « Pater Patrire" — for the glorious deeds
That make Mount Vernon's tomb a Mecca shrine
For all the earth — what thanks to thee are due,
Who, mid his elements of being, wrought,
We know not — Heaven can tell !
Rise, sculptured pile f
And show a race unborn who rests below,
And say to mothers what a ho'y charge
Is theirs — with what a kingly power their love
Might rule the fountains of the newborn mind.
Warn thorn to wake at early dawn, and sow
Good seed before the World hath sown her tares ;
Nor in their toil decline — that angel bands
May put the sickle in, and reap for God,
And gather to his garner. Ye, who stand,
With thril ing breast, to view her trophied praise,
Who nobly reared Virginia's godlike chief—
Ye, whose last thought upon your nightly couch,
Whose first at waking, is your cradled son,
What though no high ambition prompts to rear
A second WASHINGTON, or leave your name
Wrought out in marble with a nation's tears
Of deathless gratitude— yet may you raise
A monument above the stars — a soul
Led by your teachings and your prayers to God
* On laying the comer stone of her monument at Fred-
i ericksburg, Virginia.
LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
THE COUNTRY CHURCH.
IT stood among the chestnuts — its white spire
And slender turrets pointing where man's heart
Should oftener turn. Up went the wooded cliffs,
Abruptly beautiful, ahove its head,
Shutting with verdant screen the waters out,
That just beyond, in deep sequestered vale,
Wrought out their rocky passage. Clustering roofs
And varying sounds of village industry
Swelled from its margin
But all around
The solitary dell, where meekly rose
That consecrated church, there was no voice
Save what still Nature in her worship breathes,
And that unspoken lore with which the dead
Do commune with the living And methought
How sweet it were, so near the sacred house
Where we had heard of Christ, and taken his yoke,
And sabbath after sabbath gathered strength
To do his will, thus to lie down and rest,
Close 'neath the shadow of its peaceful walls ;
And when the hand doth moulder, to lift up
Our simple tombstone witness to that faith
Which can not die.
Heaven bless thee, lonely church,
And daily mayst thou warn a pilgrim-band
From toil, from cumbrance, and from strife to flee,
And drink the waters of eternal life :
Still in sweet fellowship with trees and skies,
Friend both of earth and heaven, devoutly stand
To guide the living and to guard the dead.
SOLITUDE.
DEEP solitude I sought. There was a dell
Where woven shades shut out the eye of day,
While, towering near, the rugged mountains made
Dark background 'gainst the sky. Thither I went,
And bade my spirit taste that lonely fount.
For which it long had thirsted mid the strife
And fever of the world. — I thought to be
There without witness : but the violet's eye
Looked up to greet me, the fresh wild rose smiled,
A nd the young pendent vine flower kissed my cheek.
There were glad voices too : the garrulous brook,
Untiring, to the patient pebbles told
Its history. Up came the singing breeze,
And the broad leaves of the cool poplar spake
Responsive, every one. Even busy life
Woke in that dell : the dexterous spider threw
From spray to spray the silver-tissued snare.
The thrifty ant, whose curving pincers pierced
The rifled grain, toiled toward her citadel.
To her sweet hive went forth the loaded bee,
While, from her. wind-rocked nest, the mother-bird
•Sang to her nurslings.
Yet I strangely thought
To be alone and silent in thy realm,
Spirit of life and love ! It might not be :
There is no solitude in thy domains,
Save what man makes, when in his selfish breast
He locks his joy, and shuts out others' grief.
Thou hast not left thyself in this wide world
Without a witness : even the desert place
Speaketh thy name ; the simple flowers and streams
Are social and benevolent, and he
Who holdeth converse in their language pure,
Roaming among them at the cool of day,
Shall find, like him who Eden's garden dressed,
His Maker there, to teach his listening heart.
SUNSET ON THE ALLEGANY.
I WAS a pensive pilgrim at the foot
Of the crowned Allegany, when he wrapped
His purple mantle gloriously around,
And took the homage of the princely hills,
And ancient forests, as they bowed them down,
Each in his order of nobility.
— And then, in glorious pomp, the sun retired
Behind that solemn shadow : and his train
Of crimson, and of azure, and of gold,
Went floating up the zenith, tint on tint,
And ray on ray, till all the concave caught
His parting benediction.
But the glow
Faded to twilight, and dim evening sank
In deeper shade, and there that mountain stood
In awful state, like dread embassador [severe
'Tween earth and heaven. Methought it frowned
Upon the world beneath, and lifted up
The accusing forehead sternly toward the sky,
To witness 'gainst its sins : and is it meet
For thee, swoln out in cloud-capped pinnacle,
To scorn thine own original, the dust
That, feebly eddying on the angry winds,
Doth sweep thy base 1 Say, is it meet for thee,
Robing thyself in mystery, to impeach
This nether sphere, from whence thy rocky root
Draws depth and nutriment ?
But lo ! a star,
The first meek herald of advancing night,
Doth peer above thy summit, as some babe
Might gaze with brow of timid innocence
Over a giant's shoulder. Hail, lone star !
Thou friendly watcher o'er an erring world,
Thine uncondemning glance doth aptly teach
Of that untiring mercy, which vouchsafes
Thee light, and man salvation.
Not to mark
And treasure up his follies, or recount
Their secret record in the court of Heaven,
Thou com'st. Methinks thy tenderness would
With trembling mantle, his infirmities, [shroud
The purest natures are most pitiful ;
But they who feel corruption strong within
Do launch their darts most fiercely at the trace
Of their own image, in another's breast.
— So the wild bull, that in some mirror spies
His own mad visage, furiously destroys
The frail reflector. But thou, stainless star!
Shalt stand a watchman on Creation's walls,
While race on race their little circles mark,
And slumber in the tomb. Still point to all,
Who through this evening scene may wander on
And from yon mountain's cold magnificence
Turn to thy milder beauty — point to all,
The eternal love that nightly sends thee forth,
A silent teacher of its boundless love.
LYDIA H. 8IGOURNEY.
99
THE INDIAN GIRL'S BURIAL.
A VOICE upon the prairies, -
A cry of woman's wo,
That mingleth with the autumn blast
All fitfully and low ;
It is a mother's wailing :
Hath earth another tone
Like that with which a mother mourns
Her lost, her only one !
Pale faces gather round her,
They marked the storm swell high
That rends and wrecks the tossing soul,
But their cold, blue eyes are dry.
Pale faces gaze upon her,
As the wild winds caught her moan,
But she was an Indian mother,
So she wept her tears alone.
Long o'er that wasted idol
She watched, and toiled, and prayed,
Though every dreary dawn revealed
Some ravage death had made,
Till the fleshless sinews started,
And hope no opiate gave,
And hoarse and hollow grew her voice,
An echo from the grave.
She was a gentle creature,
Of raven eye and tress ;
And dovelike were the tones that breathed
Her bosom's tenderness,
Save when some quick emotion
The warm blood strongly sent,
To revel in her olive cheek,
So richly eloquent.
I said Consumption smote her,
And the healer's art was vain,
But she was an Indian maiden,
So none deplored her pain ;
None, save that widowed mother,
Who now. by her open tomb,
Is writhing, like the. smitten wretch
Whom judgment marks for doom.
Alas ! that lowly cabin,
That bed beside the wall,
That seat beneath the mantling vine,
They're lone and empty all.
What hand shall pluck the tall green corn,
That ripeneth on the plain ]
Since she for whom the board was spread
Must ne'er return again.
Rest, rest, thou Indian maiden,
Nor let thy murmuring shade
Grieve that those pale browed ones with scorn
Thy burial rite surveyed ;
There's many a king whose funeral
A black robed realm shall see,
For whom no tear of grief is shed
Like that which falls for thee.
Yea, rest thee, forest maiden,
Beneath thy native tree !
The proud may boast their little day,
Then sink to dust like thee :
But there's many a one whose funeral
With nodding plumes may be,
Whom Nature nor affection mourn
As here they mourn for thee.
INDIAN NAMES.
YE say they all have passed away,
That noble race and brave ;
That their light canoes have vanished
From off the crested wave ;
That, mid the forests where they roamed,
There rings no hunter's shout:
But their name is on your waters —
Ye may not wash it out.
'T is where Ontario's billow
Like Ocean's surge is curled ;
Where strong Niagara's thunders wake
The echo of the world ;
Where red Missouri bringeth
Rich tribute from the west ;
And Rappahannock sweetly sleeps
On green Virginia's breast.
Ye say their conelike cabins,
That clustered o'er the vale,
Have disappeared, as withered leaves
Before the autumn's gale :
But their memory liveth on your hills,
Their baptism on your shore,
Your everlasting rivers speak
Their dialect of yore.
Old Massachusetts wears it
Within her lordly crown,
And broad Ohio bears it
Amid her young renown ;
Connecticut has wreathed it
Where her quiet foliage waves,
And bold Kentucky breathes it hoarse
Through all her ancient caves.
Wachusett hides its lingering voice
Within its rocky heart,
And Allegany graves its tone
Throughout his tofty chart.
Monadnock, on his forehead hoar,
Doth seal the sacred trust :
Your mountains build their monument,
Though ye destroy their dust.
A BUTTERFLY ON A CHILD'S GRA\E.
A BUTTERFLY basked on a baby's grave,
Where a lily had chanced to grow :
" Why art thou here, with thy gaudy dye,
When she of the blue and sparkling eye
Must sleep in the churchyard low ?"
Then it lightly soared through the sunny air.
And spoke from its shining track :
« I was a worm till I won my wings,
And she whom thou mourn' st, like a seraph sings
Wouldst thou call the blest one back1"
100
LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY.
MONODY ON THE LATE DANIEL WADS-
WORTH.
Tnor, of a noble name,
That gave in days of old
Shepherds to Zion's fold,
And chiefs of power and fame,
When Washington in times of peril drew [true —
Forth in their country's cause the valiant and the
Thou, who so many a lonely home didst cheer,
Counting thy wealth a sacred trust —
With shuddering heart the knell we hear
That tells us thou art dust.
Friend ! we have let thee fall
Into the grave, and have not gathered all
The wisdom thou didst love to pour
From a full mind's exhaustless store:
Ah, we were slow of heart,
To reap the rapid moments ere their flight —
Or thou, perchance, to us hadst taught the art
Heaven's gifts to use aright —
Amid infirmity and pain
Time's golden sands to save ;
WTith upright heart the truth maintain.;
To frown on wiles the life that stain,
Making the soul their slave ;
To joy in all things beautiful, and trace [face.
The slightest smile, or shade, that mantled Nature's
Yes, we were slow of heart, and dreamed
To see thee still at wintry tide, [beside,
With page of knowledge spread, thy pleasant hearth
When to thy clearer sight there gleamed
The beckoning hand, the waiting eye,
The smile of welcome through the sky,
Of her who was thine angel here below, [to go.
And unto whom 'twas meet that thou shouldst long
Friend ! thou didst give command
To him who dealt thy soul its hallowed bread,
As by thy suffering bed
He took his faithful stand,
Not to pronounce thy praise when thou wert dead :
So, though impulsive promptings came,
Warm o'er his lips like rushing flame,
He struggled and o'ercarne.
Even when, in sad array,
From thy lone home, where summer roses twined,
The funeral weepers held their way
Thy sahle hearse behind :
When in the holy house, where thou so long
Hadst worshipped with the sabbath throng,
Thy venerated form was laid,
While mournful dirges rose, and solemn prayers
were made.
Oh friend ! thou didst o'ermaster well
The pride of wealth, and multiply
Good deeds not done for the good word of men,
But for Heaven's judging pen,
And clear, omniscient eye;
And surely where the "just made perfect" dwell,
Earth's voice of highest eulogy
Is like the bubble of the far-off sea —
A sigh upon the grave, [wave.
Scarce moving the frail flowers that o'er its surface
Yet think not, friend revered,
Oblivion o'er thy name shall sweep,
While the fair domes that thou hast reared
Their faithful witness keep.
The fairy cottage in its robe of flowers —
The classic turrets, where the stranger strays
Amid the pencil's tints and scrolls of other days,
And yon gray tower on Montevideo's crest,
Where, mid Elysian haunts and bowers,
Thou didst rejoice to see all people blest :
These chronicle thy name —
And ah, in many a darkened cot
Thou hast a tear-embalmed fame
That can not be forgot !
But were all dumb beside,
The lyre that thou didst wake, the lone heart thou
didst guide,
In early youth, with fostering care —
These may not in cold silence bide:
For were it so, the stones on which we tread
Would find a tongue to chide
Ingratitude so dread !
No — till the fading gleam of memory's fires
From the warm altar of the heart expires,
Leave thou the much indebted free
To speak what truth inspires,
And fondly mourn for thee.
ADVERTISEMENT OF A LOST DAY.
LOST ! lost ! lost !
A gem of countless price,
Cut from the living rock, '
And graved in paradise :
Set round with three times eight
Large diamonds, clear and bright,
And each with sixty smaller ones,
All changeful as the light.
Lost — where the thoughtless throng
In Fashion's mazes wind,
Where trilleth Folly's song,
Leaving a sting behind :
Yet to my hand 'twas given
A golden harp to buy,
Such as the white-robed choir attune
To deathless minstrelsy.
Lost ! lost ! lost !
I feel all search is vain ;
That gem of countless cost
Can ne'er be mine again :
I offer no reward —
For till these heart-strings sever,
I know that Heaven-entrusted gift
Is reft away for ever.
But when the sea and land
Like burning scroll have fled,
I'll see it in His hand
Who judgeth quick and dead,
And when of scathe and loss
That man can ne'er repair,
The dread inquiry meets my soul,
What shall it answei there 1
LYDIA H. SIGOURNEY
101
FAREWELL TO A RURAL RESIDENCE.
How beautiful it stands,
Behind its elm tree's screen,
With simple attic cornice crowned,
All graceful and serene !
Most sweet, yet sad, it is
Upon yon scene to gaze,
And list its inborn melody,
The voice of other days :
For there, as many a year
Its varied chart unrolled,
I hid me in those quiet shades,
And called the joys of old ;
I called them, and they came
When vernal buds appeared,
Or whore the vine clad summer bower
Its temple roof upreared,
Or where the o'erarching grove
Spread forth its copses green,
While eyebright and asclepias reared
Their untrained stalks between ;
And the squirrel from the boughs
His broken nuts let fall,
And the merry, merry little birds
Sing at his festival.
Yon old forsaken nests
Returning spring shall cheer,
And thence the unfledged robin breathe
His greeting wild and clear ;
And from yon clustering vine,
That wreathes the casement round,
The humming-birds' unresting wing
Send forth a whirring sound ;
And where alternate springs
The lilach's purple spire
Fast by its snowy sister's side ;
Or where, with wing of fire,
The kingly oriole glancing went
Amid the foliage rare,
Shall many a group of children tread,
But mine will not be there.
Fain would I know what forms
The mastery here shall keep,
What mother in yon nursery fair
Rock her young babes to sleep :
Yet blessings on the hallowed spot,
Though here no more I stray,
And blessings on the stranger babes
Who in those halls shall play.
Heaven bless you, too, my plants,
And every parent bird
That here, among the woven boughs,
Above its young hath stirred.
I kiss your trunks, ye ancient trees,
That often o'er my head
The blossoms of your flowery spring
In fragrant showers have shed.
Thou, too, of changeful mood,
I thank thee, sounding stream.
That blent thine echo with my thought.
Or woke my musing dream.
I kneel upon the verdant turf,
For sure my thanks are due
To moss-cup and to clover leaf,
That gave me draughts of dew.
To each perennial flower,
Old tenants of the spot,
The broad leafed lily of the vale,
And the meek forget-me-not ;
To every daisy's dappled brow,
To every violet blue,
Thanks ! thanks ! may each returning year
Your changeless bloom renew.
Praise to our Father-God,
High praise, in solemn lay,
Alike for what his hand hath given,
And what it takes away :
And to some other loving heart
May all this beauty be
The dear retreat, the Eden home,
That it hath been to me !
WIDOW AT HER DAUGHTER'S BRIDAL
DEAL gently thou, whose hand hath won
The young bird from its nest away,
Where careless, 'neath a vernal sun,
She gayly carolled, day by day ;
The haunt is lone, the heart must grieve,
From whence her timid wing doth soar,
They pensive list at hush of eve,
Yet hear her gushing song no more.
Deal gently with her ; thou art dear,
Beyond what vestal lips have told,
And, like a lamb from fountains clear,
She turns confiding to thy fold ;
She, round thy sweet domestic bower
The wreaths of changeless love shall twine,
Watch for thy step at vesper hour,
And blend her holiest prayer with thine.
Deal gently thou, when, far away,
Mid stranger scenes her foot shall rove,
Nor let thy tender care decay —
The soul of woman lives in love :
And shouldst thou, wondering, mark a tear,
Unconscious, from her eyelids break,
Be pitiful, and soothe the fear
That man's strong heart may ne'er partake,
A mother yields her gem to thee,
On thy -true breast to sparkle rare ;
She places 'neath thy household tree
The idol of her fondest care :
And by thy trust to be forgiven,
When Judgment wakes in terror wild.
By all thy treasured hopes of heaven,
Deal gently with the widow's child !
KATHERINE A. WARE
(Born 1797-Died 1813.)
KATHERINE AUGUSTA RHODES was born in
J797 at Quincy, in Massachusetts, where her
father Avas a physician. She was remarkable
in childhood for a love of reading, and for
a justness of taste much beyond her years.
She wrote verses at a very early age, and a
poem at fifteen, upon the death of her kins
man, Robert Treat Paine, which possessed
sufficient merit to be included in the collec
tion of that author's works. In 1819 she
was married to Mr. Charles A. Ware, of the
Navy, and in the next few years she ap
peared frequently as a writer of odes for
public occasions and as a contributor to lit
erary journals. Among her odes was one
addressed to Lafayette and presented to him
in the ceremony of his reception in Boston,
by her eldest child, then five years old ; and
another, in honor of Governor De Witt Clin
ton, which was recited at the great Canal
Celebration in New York.
In 1828 Mrs. Ware commenced in Boston
the publication of a literary periodical, enti
tled The Bower of Taste, which was con
tinued several years. She subsequently re
sided in New York, and in 1839 went to Eu
rope, where she remained until her death, in
Paris in 1843.
A few months before she died, Mrs. Ware
published, in London, a selection from her
writings, under the title of The Power of the
Passions and other Poems. The composition
from which the volume has its principal title
was originally printed in the Knickerbocker
Magazine, for April in the same year. This,
though the longest, is scarcely the best of her
productions, but it has passages of consider
able strength and boldness, and some felici
ties of expression. She describes a public
dancer, as
Moving as if her element were air,
And music was the echo of her step ;
and there are many other lines noticable for
a picturesque beauty or a fine cadence. In
other poems, also, are parts which are much
superior to their contexts, as if written in
moments of inspiration, and added to in la
borious leisure: as the following, from The
Diamond Island, which refers to a beautiful
place in Lake George:
How sweet to stray along thy flowery shore,
Where crystals sparkle in the sunny ray ;
While the red boatman plies his silvery oar
To the wild measure of some rustic lay !
and these lines, from an allusion to Athens:
Views the broad stadium where th'e gymnic art
Nerved the young arm and energized the heart.
or this apostrophe to sculpture, from Musings
in St. James's Cemetery :
Sculpture, oh, what a triumph o'er the grave
Hath thy proud art ! thy powerful hand can save
From the destroyers grasp the noble form,
As if the spirit dwelt, still thrilling, warm,
In every line and feature of the face,
The air majestic, and the simple grace
Of flowing robes, which shade, but not conceal,
All that -the classic chisel would reveal.
These inequalities are characteristic of the
larger number of Mrs. Ware's poems, but
there are in her works some pieces marked
by a sustained elegance, and deserving of
praise for their fancy and feeling as well as
for an artist-like finish.
LOSS OF THE FIRST BORN.
I SAW a pale young mother bending o'er
Her first-born hope. Its soft blue eyes wore closed,
Not in the balmy dream of downy rest :
In Dentil's embrace the shrouded babe reposed ;
It slept the dreamless sleep that wakes no more.
A low sigh struggled in her heavinir breast.
But yet she \vept not : hers was the deep grief
The .icsirt, in its dark desolation, feels;
Which breathes not in impassioned accents wild,
But slowly the warm pulse of life congeals;
A grief which from the world seeks no relief —
A mother's sorrow o'er her first-born child.
She gazed upon it with a steadfast eye, [thee !?
Which seemed to say, " Oh, would I were with
As if her every earthly hope were fled
With that departed cherub. Even he — [sigh
Her young heart's choice, who breathed a father's
Of bitter anguish o'er the unconscious dead —
Felt not, while weeping by its funeral bier,
One pang so deep as hers, who shed no tear.
102
KATHERINE A. WARE.
103
MADNESS.
I ' VK seen the wreck of loveliest things : I 've wept
O'er youthful Beauty in her snowy shroud,
All cold and pale, as when the moon hath slept
In the white foldings of a wintry cloud
I 've seen the wreck of glorious things : I 've sighed
O'er sculptured temples in prostration laid ;
Towers which the blast of ages had defied,
Now mouldering beneath the ivy's shade.
Yet oh ! there is a scene of deeper wo,
To which the soul can never be resigned :
'Tis Phrensy's triumph, Reason's overthrow —
The ruined structure of the human mind !
Yes! 'tis a sight of paralyzing dread,
To mark the rolling of the maniac's eye
From which the spark of intellect hath fled —
The laugh convulsive, and the deep-drawn sigh ;
To see Ambition, with his moonlight helm,
Armed with the fancied panoply of war,
The mimic sovereign of a powerful realm —
His shield a shadow, and his spear a straw ;
To see pale Beauty raise her dewy eyes.
Toss her white arms, and beckon things of air,
As if she held communion with the skies,
And all she loved and all she sought were there ;
To list the warring of unearthly sounds,
Which wildly rise, like Ocean's distant swell,
Or spirits shrieking o'er enchanted grounds,
Forth rushing from dark Magic's secret cell.
Oh, never, never may such fate be mine !
I 'd rather dwell in earth's remotest cave,
So I my spirit calmly might resign
To Him who Reason's glorious blessing gave.
A NEW-YEAR WISH.
TO A CHILD AGED FIVE YEARS.
DEAR one, while bending o'er thy couch of rest,
I 've looked on thee as thou wert calmly sleeping,
And wished — Oh, couldst thou ever be as blest
As now, when haply all thy cause of weeping
Is for a truant bird, or faded rose !
Though these light griefs call forth the ready tear,
They cast no shadow o'er thy soft repose —
No trace of care or sorrow lingers here.
With rosy check upon the pillow prest,
To me thou seem'st a cherub pure and fair,
With thy sweet smile and gently heaving breast,
And the bright ringlets of thy clustering hair.
What shall I wish thee, little one ? Smile on
Thro' childhood's morn — thro' life's gay spring —
For oh, too soon will those bright hours be gone ! —
In youth time flies upon a silken wing.
May thy young mind, beneath the bland control
Of education, lasting worth acquire;
May Virtue stamp her signet on thy soul,
Direct thy steps, and every thought inspire !
Thy parents' earliest hope — be it their care
To guide thee through youth's path of shade and
flowers,
And teach thee to avoid -false pleasure's snare —
Be thine, to smile upon their evening hours.
MARKS OF TIME.
AN infant boy was playing among flowers
Old Time, that unbribed register of hours,
Came hobbling on, but smoothed his wrinkled face,
To mark the artless joy and blooming grace
Of the young cherub, on whose cheek so fair
He smiled, and left a rosy dimple there.
Next Boyhood followed, with his shout of glee,
Elastic step, and spirit wi d and free
As the young fawn that scales the mountain height.
Or new-fledged eaglet in his sunward flight:
Time cast a glance upon the care ess boy,
Who frolicked onward with a bound of joy. f eyo
Then Youth came forward : his bright-glancing
Seemed a reflection of the cloud 'ess sky !
The dawn of passion, in its purest glow,
Crimsoned his cheek, and beamed upon his brow,
Giving expression to his blooming face,
And to his fragile form a manly grace ;
His voice was harmony, his speech was truth —
Time lightly laid his hand upon the youth.
Manhood next followed, in the sunny prime
Of life's meridian bloom : all the sublime
And beautiful of nature met his view,
Brightened by Hope, whose radiant pencil drew
The rich perspective of a scene as fair
As that which smiled on Eden's sinless pair ;
Love, fame, and glory, with alternate sway,
Thri led his warm heart, and with electric ray
Illumed his eye ; yet still a shade of care,
Like a li^ht cloud that floats in summer air,
Would shed at times a transitory gloom,
But shadowed not one grace of manly bloom.
Time sighed, as on his polished brow he wrought
The first impressive lines of care and thought.
Man in his grave maturity came next :
A bold review of life, from the broad text
Of Nature's ample volume ! He had scanned
Her varied page, and a high course had planned ;
Humbled ambition, wealth's deceitful smile,
The loss of friends, disease, and mental toil,
Had blanched his cheek and dimmed his ardent eye.
But spared his noble spirit's energy !
God's proudest stamp of intellectual grace
Still shone unclouded on his careworn face !
On his high brow still sate the firm resolve
Of judgment deep, whose issue might involve
A nation's fate. Yet thoughts of milder glow
Would oft, like sunbeams o'er a mount of snow,
Upon his cheek their genial influence cast,
While musing o'er the bright or shadowy past :
Time, as he marked his noblest victim, shed
The frost of years upon his honored head.
Last came, with trembling limbs and bending
form.
Like the old oak scathed by the wintry storm.
Man, in the closing stage of human life —
Nigh passed his every scene of peace or strife,
Reason's proud triumph, Passion's wild control.
No more dispute for mastery, o'er his soul ,
As rest the billows on the sea-beat shore,
The war of rivalry is heard no more ;
Faith's steady light alone illumes his eye,
F>r Time is pointing to Eternity !
JANE L. GRAY.
(Born 1800).
Mus. J. L. GRAY is a daughter of William
Lewcrs, Esquire, of Castle Clayney, in the
north of Ireland. She was educated at the
celebrated Moravian seminary of Gracehill,
near Belfast, was married at an early age,
and has resided nearly all her lifetime at Eas-
ton, in Pennsylvania, where her husband, the
Rev. John Gray, D. D., is pastor of the First
Presbyterian Church. In this beautiful, ro
mantic, and classical spot — the veritable
" Forks of the Delaware, "consecrated by the
labors of Brainard, and celebrated in poetry
and romance as in history — Mrs. Gray has
written all her pieces which have been given
to the public. Her life has been one of re
tiring, domestic quietude, such as Christian
women spend in the midst of a numerous
family to whom they are devoted with ma
ternal solicitude. Her Sabbath Reminiscen
ces are descriptive of real scenes and events
connected with the church of which her fa
ther was an elder. The poem entitled Morn,
having been attributed by some reviewrer to
Mr. Montgomery, that poet observes, in a
published letter, that the author of the mis
take " did him honor." It is certainly a fine
poem,- though scarcely equal, perhaps, to
some pieces which Mrs. Gray has written
from the more independent suggestions of
her own mind.
TWO HUNDRED YEARS AGO.
AN OPE,
Written for the bi-rentennial celebration of the illustrious Wesminster
\-st-iiiliIv <>i' J)iviiie.-<, by whom the standards of the Presbyterian
Church were formed.
Two hundred years, two hundred years, our bark
o'er billowy seas
Has onward kept her steady course, through hur
ricane and breeze ;
Her Captain was the Mighty One, she braved the
stormy foe,
And still he guides who guided her two hundred
years ago !
Her chart was God's unerring word, by which
her course to steer ;
Her helmsman was the risen Lord, a helper ever
near :
Though many a beauteous boat has sunk the
treacherous waves below,
Yet ours is sound as she was built, two hundred
years ago!
The wind that filled her swelling sheet from many
a point has blown,
Still urging her unchanging course, through shoals
and breakers, on —
ITo.r fluttering pennant still the same, whatever
l,i. r/.e might blow —
It pointed, as it does, to heaven, two hundred
years ago !
\V ben first our gallant ship was launched, although
her hands were few,
Yet dauntless was each bosom found, and every
heart was true ;
And still, though in her mighty hull unnumbered
bosoms glow,
Her crew is faithful as it was two hundred years
ago!
True, some have left this noble craft, to sail the
seas alone,
And made them, in their hour of pride, a vessel
of their own ;
Ah me ! when clouds portentous rise, when threat
ening tempests blow,
They '11 wish for that old vessel built two hundred
years ago !
For onward rides our gallant bark, with all her
canvass set,
In many a nation still unknown to plant her
standard yet ;
Her flag shall float where'er the breeze of Free
dom's breath shall blow,
And millions bless the boat that sailed two hun
dred years ago !
On Scotia's coast, in days of yore, she lay almost
a wreck —
Her mainmast gone, her rigging torn, the boarders
on her deck !
There Cameron, Cargill, Cochran, fell ; there Ren-
wick's blood did flow,
Defending our good vessel built two hundred years
ago!
Ah ! many a martyr's blood was shed — we may
not name them all —
They tore the peasant from his hut, the noble from
his hall ;
Then, brave Argyle, thy father's blood for faith did
freely flow :
And pure the stream, as was the fount, two hun
dred years ago !
104
JANE L. GRAY.
105
Yet onward still our vessel pressed, and weathered
out the gale ;
She cleared the wreck, and spliced the mast, and
mended every sail,
And swifter, stancher, mightier far, upon her cruise
did go —
Strong hands and gallant hearts had she, two hun
dred years ago !
And see her now — on her beam ends cast, beneath
a northwest storm :
Heave overboard the very bread, to keep the ship
from harm ! —
She rights ! she rides !— hark ! how they cheer—
« All's well, above, below !"
She 's tight as when she left the stocks, two hun
dred years ago !
True to that guiding star which led to Israel's cra
dled hope,
Her steady needle pointeth yet to Calvary's bloody
top!
Yes, there she floats, that good old ship, from mast
to keel below,
Sea-worthy still, as erst she was, two hundred years
ago!
Not unto us, not unto us, be praise or glory
given,
But unto Him who watch and ward hath kept for
her in heaven ;
Who quelled the whirlwind in its wrath, bade tem
pests cease to blow —
That God who launched our vessel forth, two hun
dred years ago !
Then onward speed thee, brave old bark, speed
onward in thy pride,
O'er sunny seas and billows dark, Jehovah stil
thy guide ;
And sacred be each plank and spar, unchanged by
friend or foe,
Just as she left Old Westminster, two hundred
years ago !
SABBATH REMINISCENCES.
I REMEMBER, I remember, when sabbath mornin
*OSCS
We changed, for garments neat and clean, our soile
week-day clothes ;
And yet no gaudy finery, nor brooch nor jewe
rare,
Bat hands and faces looking bright, and smoothly
parted hair.
'T was not the decking of the head, my father use
to say,
But careful clothing of the heart, that graced tha
holy day —
'T was not the bonnet nor the dress ; and I believe
it true :
But these were very simple times, and I was sim
pie too.
I remember, I remember, the parlor where w
met;
Its papered wall, its polished floor, and mantle blac
as jet ;
1 was there we raised our morning hymn, melo
dious, sweet, and clear,
nd joined in prayer with that loved voice which
we no more may hear,
ur morning sacrifice thus made, then to the house
of God
How solemnly, and silently, and cheerfully, we
trod !—
see e'en now its low, thatched roof, its floor of
trodden clay,
And our old pastor's timeworn face, an I wig of
silver gray,
remember, I remember, how hushed and mute we
were,
While he led our spirits up to God in heartfelt,
melting prayer ;
grace his action or his voice, no studied charm
was lent :
Pure, fervent, glowing from the heart, so to the heart
it went.
Then came the sermon, long and quaint, but full
of gospel truth ;
Ah me ! I was no judge of that, for I was then in
youth ;
But I have heard my father say, and well my father
knew,
In it was meat for full-grown men, and milk for
children too.
I remember, I remember, as 'twere but yesterday,
The psalms in Rouse's Version sung, a rude but
lovely lay ;
Nor yet though Fashion's hand has tried to train
my wayward ear,
Can I find aught in modern verse so holy or so
dear !
And well do I remember, too, our old preceptor's
face,
As he read out and sung the line with patriarchal
Though rudely rustic was the sound, I 'm sure that
God was praised
When David's words to David's tune* five hun
dred voices raised !
I remember, I remember, the morning sermon
done, .
An hour of intermission came— we wandei
the sun ;
How hoary farmers sat them down upon the daisy
And talked of bounteous Nature's stores, ^nd Na
ture's bounteous God ; —
And matrons talked, as matrons will, of sickness
and of health—
Of births, and deaths, and marriages, of poverty
and wealth ;
And youths and maidens stole apart, withm It
shady grove,
And whispered 'neath its spreading bough, per
chance some tale of love !
* m David's was one of the few tunes used by the coo
gregation to which I have allusion.
206
JANE L. GRAY.
I remember, I remember, how in the churchyard
lone
I've stolen away and sat me down beside the rude
gravestone,
Or read the names of those who slept beneath the
clay -cold clod,
And thought of spirits glittering bright before the
throne of God !
Or where the little rivulets danced sportively and
bright,
Receiving on its limpid breast the sun's meridian
light,
I 've wandered forth, and thought if hearts were
pure like this sweet stream,
How fair to heaven they might reflect heaven's
uncreated beam !
I remember, I remember, the second sermon o'er,
We turned our faces once again to our paternal
door;
And round the well-filled, ample board sat no re
luctant guest,
For exercise gave appetite, and loved ones shared
the feast !
Then, ere the sunset hour arrived, as we were
wont to do,
The catechism's well conned page, we said it
through and through ;
And childhood's faltering tongue was heard to lisp
the holy word,
And older voices read aloud the message of the
Lord.
Away back in those days of yore — perhaps the
fault was mine —
I used to think the sabbath day, dear Lord, was
wholly thine ;
When it behooved to keep the heart and bridle
fast the tongue :
But these were very simple times, and I was very
young.
The world has grown much older since these sun-
bright sabbath days —
The world has grown much older since, and she
has changed her ways :
Some say that she has wiser grown ; ah me ! it
may be true,
As wisdom comes by length of years, but so does
dotage, too.
Oh ! happy, happy years of truth, how beautiful,
how fair,
To Memory's retrospective eye, your trodden path
ways are !
The thorns forgot — remembered still the fragrance
and the flowers —
The loved companions of my youth, and sunny
sabbath hours ! —
And onward, onward, onward still, successive sab
baths <*otne,
As guides to lead us on the road to our eternal
home ;
Or like the visioned ladder once to slumbering
Jacob given,
From heaven descending to the earth, lead back
from earth to heaven !
MORN.
IN IMITATION OF "NIGHT," BY JAMES MONTGOMERT
Mo UN is the time to wake —
The eyelids to unclose —
Spring from the arms of Sleep, and break
The fetters of repose ;
Walk at the dewy dawn abroad,
And ho!d sweet fellowship with God.
Morn is the time to pray:
How lovely and how meet
To send our earliest thoughts away
Up to the mercy seat !
Ambassadors, for us to claim
A blessing in our Master's name.
Morn is the time to sing :
How charming 't is to hear
The mingling notes of Nature ring
In the delighted ear !
And with that swelling anthem raise
The soul's fresh matin song of praise !
Morn is the time to sow
The seeds of heavenly truth,
While balmy breezes softly blow
Upon the soil of youth ;
And look to thee, nor look in vain,
Our God, for sunshine and for rain.
Morn is the time to love :
As tendrils of the vine,
The young affections fondly rove,
And seek them where to twine.
Around thyself, in thine embrace,
Lord, let them find their resting place.
Morn is the time to shine,
When skies are clear and blue —
Reflect the rays of light divine
As morning dewdrops do :
Like early stars, be early bright,
And melt away like them in light.
Morn is the time to weep
O'er morning hours misspent :
Alas ! how oft from peaceful sleep
On folly madly bent,
We've left the strait and narrow road,
And wandered from our guardian God !
Morn is the time to think,
While thoughts are fresh and free,
Of life just balanced on the brink
Of dark eternity !
And ask our souls if they are meet
To stand before the judgment seat.
Morn is the time to die,
Just at the dawn of day —
When stars are fading in the sky,
To fade like them away :
But lost in light more brilliant far
Than ever merged the morning star.
Morn is the time to rise,
The resurrection morn —
Upspringing to the glorious skies,
On new-found pinions borne,
To meet a Savior's smile divine :
Be sii3h ecstatic rising mine !
SOPHIA L. LITTLE.
(Born 1799).
MRS. LITTLE was born at Newport, in the
year 1799. She is the second daughter of the
late eminent jurist and statesman Asher Rob-
bins, who for fourteen years was a senator
of the state of Rhode Island in the national
Congress. She inherits much of her father's
genius and love of letters, and she displayed
from early childhood, under the advantages
of his judicious culture, the strong imagina
tion, ready fancy, and chastened taste, which
in him were united to an uncommon capaci
ty for analysis and a vigorous and far reach
ing logic.
In 1824 she was married to Mr. William
Little, junior, of Boston, a gentleman of con
genial tastes, whose principles of criticism,
more severe and exacting than her own,
contributed very much to the discipline and
growth of her poetical abilities. She had
occasionally written verses for the amuse
ment of her friends, and had published in the
journals a few pieces, under the s gnature
of Ro WEN A, previous to 1828, when her po
em entitled Thanksgiving appeared in The
Token, an annual souvenir edited for many
years by Mr. S. G. Goodrich, Thanksgiving
is a natural and striking picture of the New
England autumn festival : it has an odor of
nationality about it ; and it will live, both
for its fidelity and its felicity, as one of the
finest memorials of an institution which in
later years has lost much of its primitive
character and attractiveness.
Besides many shorter poems which have
appeared in periodicals, Mrs. Little has since
published : in 1839, The Last Days of Jesus ;
in 1842, The Annunciation and Birth of Je
sus, and The Resurrection ; and in 1844, The
Betrothed, and The Branded Hand. In 1843
she also published a small work in prose,
entitled The Pilgrim's Progress in the Last
Days, in imitation of Bunyan.
THE POET.
HE is happy : not that fame
Givelh him a glorious name ;
For the world's applause is vain,
Lost and won with little pain :
But a sense is in his spirit
Which no vulgar minds inherit —
A second sight of soul which sees
Into Nature's mysteries.
Place him by the ocean's side,
When the waters dash with pride :
With their wild and awful roll
Deep communes his lifted soul.
Now let the sudden tempest come
From its cloudy eastern home ;
Let the thunder's fearful shocks
Break among the dark, rough rocks,
And lightning, as the waves aspire,
Crown him with a wreath of fire ;
Let the wind with sullen breath
Seem to breathe a dirge of death :
Thou mayst feel thy cheek turn pale ;
But he that looks within the veil,
The bard, high priest at Nature's shrine,
Trembles with a warmth divine.
His heaving breast, his kindling eye,
His brow's expanded majesty,
Show that the spirit of his thought
Hath Nature's inspiration caught.
Now place him in a gentle scene,
'Neath an autumn sky serene ;
Let some hamlet skirt his way,
Gleaming in the fading day ;
Let him hear the distant low
Of the herds that homeward go ;
Let him catch, as o'er it floats,
The music of the robin's notes,
As softly sinks upon its nest
He, of birds the kindliest ;
Let him catch from yonder nook
The murmur of the minstrel brook ;
The stones that fain would check its way
It leapcth o'er with purpose gay,
Or only lingereth for a time,
To draw from them a merrier chime ;
E'en as a gay and gentle mind,
Though rough breaks in life it find,
Passe th by as 'twere not so,
Or draws sweet uses out of wo ;
The scene doth on his soul impress
Its glory and its loveliness.
Now place him in some festal hall
The merry band of minstrels call,
Banish sorrow, pain, and care,
Let graceful, sprightly youth be there
108
SOPHIA L. LITTLE.
Beauty, with her jewelled zone
And sparkling draperv round her thrown ,
Beauty, who surest aims her glance
When the free motion of the dance
All her varied charms hath stirred,
As the plumage of a hird
Shows brightest when in air he springs,
Spreading forth his sunny wings.
Place the bard in scenes like this,
E'en here he knows no common bliss.
Beauty, mirth, and music, twined,
Shed b'and witchery o'er hi.s mind.
Yet not alone these charm his eyes —
In fancy other sights he spies:
The ancient feats of chivalry,
Of war's and beauty's rivalry.
That hall becomes an open space,
Where knights contend for ladies' grace.
He sees a creature far more fair
Than any forms around him are ;
One love glance of her radiant eyes,
The boon for which the valiant dies.
He sees the armored knights advance,
He hears the shiver of the lance,
And then the shout when tourney's done
That greets the conquering champion,
While, kneeling at his lady's feet,
The victor's heart doth scarcely beat,
As, blushing like a newborn rose,
His chosen queen the prize bestows.
But would you know the season when
He triumphs most o'er other men,
See him when heart, pulse, and brain,
Are bound in Love's mysterious chain.
Behold him then beside the maid :
There 's not one curl hath thrown its shade
In vain upon that bosom's swell ;
All are secrets of the spell
That holds the visionary boy
Breathless in his trance of joy.
And yet no definite desire
Does that strong sense of bliss inspire ;
But sweetly vague and undefined
The feeling that enthralls his mind —
An indistinct, deep dream of heaven,
Her melting, shadowy eye hath given.
These the poet's p'easures are ;
These the dull world can not share ;
These make fame so poor a prize
[n his heaven enlightened eyes.
What is poetry but this —
A glimpse of our lost state of bliss;
A noble reaching of the mind
For that for which it was designed
A si^n to lofty spirits given,
To show them they were born for heaven ;
Light from above, quenched when it falls
Whore the gross earth with darkness palls
The fallen soul content to be
Wt-<l to its sad degeneracy ;
But when, like light on crystal streams,
On a pure mind its effluence beams,
How brightly in such spirit lins
An image of the far off sKies !
THANKSGIVING.
IT is thanksgiving morn — 'tis cold and clear;
The bells for church ring forth a merry sound ;
The maidens, in their gaudy winter gear,
Rival the many tinted woods around ;
The rosy children skip along the ground,
Save where the matrojj reins their eager pace,
Pointing to him who with a look profound
Moves with his ' people' toward the sacred place
Where duly he bestows the manna crumbs of
grace.
Of the deep learning in the schools of yore
The reverend pastor hath a golden stock :
Yet, with a vain display of useless lore,
Or sapless doctrine, never will he mock
The better cravings of his simple flock ;
But faithfully their humble shepherd guides
Where streams eternal gush from Calvary's rock ;
For well he knows, not Learning's purest tides
Can quench the immortal thirst that in the soul
abides.
The anthem swells ; the heart's high thanks are
given :
Then, mildly, as the dews on Hermon fall,
Begins the holy minister of heaven.
And though not his the burning zeal of Paul,
Yet a persuasive power is in his call :
So earnest, though so kindly, is his mood,
So tenderly he longs to save them all,
No bird more fondly flutters o'er her brood
When the dark vulture screams above their native
wood.
" For all His bounties, dearest charge," he cries,
" Your hearts are the best thanks ; no more refrain ;
Your yielded hearts he asks in sacrifice.
Almighty Lover ! shalt thou love in vain,
And vainly woo thy wanderers home again ?
How thy soft mercy with the sinner pleads !
Behold ! thy harvest loads the ample plain ;
And the same goodness lives in all thy deeds,
From the least drop of rain, to those that Jesus
bleeds."
Much more he spake, with growing ardor fired :
Oh, that my lay were worthy to record
The moving eloquence his theme inspired !
For like a free and copious stream, outpoured
His love to man and man's indulgent lord.
All were subdued; the stoutest, sternest men,
Heart melted, hung on every precious word :
And as he uttered forth his full amen,
A thousand mingling sobs reechoed it again.
Behold that ancient house on yonder lawn,
Close by whose rustic porch an elm is seen :
Lo ! now has past the service of the morn ;
A joyous group are hastening o'er the green,
Led by an aged sire of gracious mien,
Whose gay descendants are all met to hold
Their glad thanksgiving in that sylvan scene,
That once enclosed them in one happy fold,
Ere waves of time and change had o'er them
rolled.
SOPHIA L. LITTLE.
109
The hospitable doors are open thrown ;
The bright wooil fire burns cheerly in the hall;
And, gathering in, a busy hum makes known
The spirit of free mirth that moves them all.
There, a youth hears a lovely cousin's call,
And ilies alertly to unclasp the cloak;
And she, the while, with merry laugh lets fall
Upon his awkwardness some lively joke,
Not pitying the blush her bantering has woke.
And there the grandam sits, in placid ease,
A gentle brightness o'er her features spread :
Her children's children cluster round her knees,
Or on her bosorn fondly rest their head.
Oh, happy sight, to see such blossoms shed
Their sweet young fragrance o'er such ag d tree !
How vain to say, that, when short youth has fled,
Our dearest of enjoyments cease to be,
When hoary eld is loved but the more tenderly !•
And there the manly farmers scan the news ;
(Strong is their sense, though plain the garb it
wears ;)
Or, while their pipes a lulling smoke diffuse,
They look important from their elbow chairs,
And gravely ponder on the nation's cares.
The matrons of the morning sermon speak,
And each its passing excellence declares;
While tears of pious rapture, pure and meek,
Course in soft beauty down the Christian mother's
cheek.
Then, just at on-e, the full thanksgiving feast,
Rich with the bounties of the closing year,
Is spread ; and, from the greatest to the least,
All crowd the table, and enjoy the cheer.
The list of dainties will not now appear —
Save one I can not pass unheeded by,
One dish, already to the muses dear,
One dish, that wakens Memory's longing sigh —
The genuine far famed Yankee pumpkin pie !
Who e'er has seen thee in thy flaky crust
Display the yellow richness of thy breast,
But, as the si^ht awoke his keenest gust,
Has owned th.ee of all cates the choicest, best ?
Ambrosia were a fool, to thee compared,
Even by the ruby hand of Hebe drest —
Thee, pumpkin pie, by country maids prepared,
With their white, rounded arms above the elbow
oared !
Now to the kitchen come a vacant train,
The plenteous fragments of the feast to share.
The old lame fiddler wakes a merry strain,
For his mulled cider and his pleasant fare —
Reclining in that ancient wicker chair.
A veteran soldier he, of those proud times
When first our Freedom's banner kissed the air :
His battles oft he sings in untaught rhymes,
When wakening Memory his ag.'d heart sublimes.
But who is this, whose scarlet cloak has known
Full oft the pelting of the winter storm ?
Through its fringed hood a strong, wild face is
shown —
Tall, gaunt, and bent with years, the beldame's
form :
There 's none of all these youth, with vigor warm,
"Who dare by slightest word her anger stir.
So dark the frown that does her face deform,
That half the frighted villagers aver
The very de'il himself incarnate is in her !
Yet now the sybil wears her mildest mood ;
And round her see the anxious, silent band.
Falls from her straggling locks the antique hood,
As close she peers in that fair maiden's hand,
W7ho scarce the struggles in her heart can stand ;
Affection's strength hath made her nature weak
She of her lo\7ely looks hath lost command :
The fleckered red and white within her cheek —
Oh, all her love doth there most eloquently speak !
Thy doting faith, fond maid, may envied be,
And half excused the superstitious art.
Now, when the sybii's mystic words to thee
The happier fortunes of thy love impart,
Thrilling tny soul in its most vital part,
How does the throb of inward ecstasy
Send the luxuriant blushes from thy heart
All o'er thy varying cheek, like some clear sea
Where the red morning glow falls full but trem
blingly !
'T is evening, and the rural balls begin :
The fairy call of music all obey ;
The circles round domestic hearths grow thin ;
All, at the joyful signal, hie away
To yonder hall, with lights and garlands gay.
There, with elastic step, young belles are seen
Entering, all conscious of their coming sway :
Not oft their fancies underrate, I ween,
The spoils and glories of this festal scene.
New England's daughters need not envy those
Who in a monarch's court their jewels wear :
More lovely they, when but a simple rose
Glows through the golden clusters of their hair.
Could light of diamonds make her look more fair,
Who moves in beauty through the mazy dance,
W'ith buoyant feet that seem to skim the air,
And eyes that speak, in each impassioned glance,
The poetry of youth, love's sweet and short ro
mance 1
He thinks not so, that young enamored boy,
Who through the whirls her graceful steps doth
guide,
While his heart swells with the deep pulse of joy.
Oh, no : by Nature taught, unlearned in pride,
He sees her in her loveliness arrayed,
All blushing for the love she can not hide,
And feels that gaudy Art could only shade
The brightness Nature gave to his unrivalled
maid.
Gay bands, move on ; your draught of pleasure
I love to listen to your joyous din ; [qiuff;
The lad's light joke, the maiden's mellow laugh,
And the brisk music of the violin.
How blithe to see the sprightly dance begin !
Entwining hands, they seem to float along,
With native rustic grace that well might win
' The happiest praises of a sweeter song,
From a more gifted lyre than doth to me belong.
liO
LYDIA M. CHILD.
While these enjoy the mirth that suits their years,
Round the home fires their peaceful elders meet.
A gentler mirth their friendly converse cheers ;
And yet, though calm their pleasures, they are
sweet :
Through the cold shadows of the autumn day
Oft hreaks the sunshine with as genial heat
As o'er the soft and sapphire skies of May,
Though Nature then be young and exquisitely gay.
On the white wings of peace their days have flown,
Nor wholly were they thralled hy earthly cares ;
Bui from their hearts to Heaven's paternal throne
Arose the daily incense of their prayers.
And now, as low the sun of being wears,
The God to whom their morning vows were paid,
Each grateful offering in remembrance bears ;
And cheering beams of mercy are displayed,
To gild with heavenly hopes their evening's pensive
shade.
But now, farewell to thee, Thanksgiving Day !
Thou angel of the year ! one bounteous hand
The horn of deep abundance doth display,
Raining its rich profusion o'er the land ;
The other arm, outstretched with gesture grand,
Pointing its upraised finger to the sky,
Doth the warm tribute of our thanks demand
For him, the Father God, who from on high
Sheds gleams of purest joy o'er man's dark destiny
LYDIA M. CHILD,
(Born 1802).
Miss FRANCIS, now Mrs. DAVID L. CHILD,
is a native of Massachusetts, and a sister of
the Rev. Dr. Conyers Francis, of Harvard
University. She is one of the most able and
brilliant authors of the country, as is shown
by her Philothea, Letters from New York,
and other works, of which an account is
given in the Prose Writers of America. Most
of her poems are contained in a small vol
ume which she published many years ago,
under the title of The Coronal. She resides
in New York.
MARIUS.
SUGGESTED BY A PAINTING BY VANDERLYN, OF MA-
(11 US SKATED AMONG THE RUINS OF CARTHAGE.
PILLARS are falling at thy feet,
Fanes quiver in the air,
\ prostrate city is thy seat — '
And thou alone art there.
No change comes o'er thy noble brow,
Though ruin is around thee — •
Thine eye-beam burns as proudly now,
As when the laurel crowned thee.
It can not bend thy lofty soul,
Though friends and fame depart;
The car of fate may o'er thee roll,
Nor crush thy Roman heart.
And Genius hath electric power,
Which earth can never1 tame ;
Bright suns may scorch, and dark clouds lower —
Its flash is still the same
The dreams we loved in early life
May molt like mist away ;
rliijh thoughts may seem, mid passion's strife,
Like Carthage in decay.
And proud hopes in the human heart
May be to ruin hurled,
Like mouldering monuments of art
lU-api-d on a sleeping world.
Vet then1 is something will not die,
Where life hath once been fair:
^criM1 towering thoughts still rear on high,
S-ime Roman lingers there !
LINES,
ON HEARING A BOY MOCK THE SOUND OF A CLOCK
IN A CHURCH-STEEPLE, AS IT RUNG AT MIDDAY.
AY, ring thy shout to the merry hours :
Well may ye part in glee ;
From their sunny wings they scatter flowers,
And, laughing, look on thee.
Thy thrilling voice has started tears :
It brings to mind the day
When I chased butterflies and years —
And both flew fast away.
Then my glad thoughts were few and free :
They came but to depart,
And did not ask where heaven could be —
'Twas in my little heart.
I since have sought the meteor crown,
Which fame bestows on men :
How gladly would I throw it down,
To be so gay again !
But youthful joy has gone away :
In vain 'tis now pursued ;
Such rainbow glories only stay
Around the simple good.
I know too much, to be as blessed
As when I was like thee ;
My spirit, reasoned into rest,
Has lost its buoyancy.
Yet still I love the winged hours :
\Ve often part in glee —
And sometimes, too, are fragrant flowers
Their fart^ell gifts to me.
LOUISA J. HALL.
(Born 1802).
LOUISA JANE PARK, now Mrs. HALL, was
burn in Newburyport, Massachusetts, on the
seventh of February, 1802. Her father was
a physician, but when she was about two
years of age he abandoned his profession to
remove to Boston, for the purpose of editing
The Repertory, a leading political journal of
the Federal party. In a few years he be
came weary of the conflict, then waged with
so much violence, and, urged to do so by some
of the most intelligent citizens, opened a
school for young women, in which a more
thorough education might be received than
was common in that period. His daugh
ter was then in her tenth year ; he had al
ready made her familiar with Milton and
Shakspere ; and it was partly with the view
of exe uJng his plans for her education that
he decided to become a public teacher. His
school was opened in the spring of 1811 , and
for twenty years was eminently successful.
His daughter, except when her studies were
interrupted by ill health, was eight years his
pupil. She early showed symptoms of a sus
ceptible constitution, and her experience, of
a spirit ever prompting action, and a body
incapable of fulfilling its commands without
suffering, has been perpetual.
Her wri tings show that her mind was wise
ly as well as carefully disciplined, and prob
ably her habiis of composition were formed
at an early period. She published nothing,
however, until she was twenty years of age,
and then anonymously, in the Literary Ga
zette, and the newspapers. She wrote Mir
iam only for amusement, as she did many
little poems and tales which she destroyed.
The first half of this drama, written in 1 825,
was read at a small literary party in Boston.
The author, not being known, was present,
and was encouraged by the remarks it occa
sioned to finish it in the following summer,
her father forbade her design to burn it ; it
was read, as completed, in the winter of 1826,
and the authorship disclosed ; but she had
not courage to publish it for several years,
bne saw its defects more distinctly than be
fore, when it appeared in print, and resolved
never again to attempt anything so long in
the form of poetry. Her eyesight failed for
j four or five years, during which time she was
almost entirely deprived of the use of books,
the pen, arid what she says she most regret
ted, the needle.
Previously to this, however, in 1831, her
father had retired to Worcester, carrying with
him a library of some three thousand volumes,
containing many valuable works in Latin,
French, and Italian. During her partial blind
ness, he read to her several hours every day,
and assisted her in collecting the materials
for her tale of Joanna of Naples, and for a
biographical notice of Elizabeth Carter, the
English authoress.
On the first of October, 1 840, she was mar
ried to the Rev. Edward B. Hall, of Provi
dence, Rhode Island, where she still resides,
too much interested in domestic affairs, and
in the duties which grow out of her relation
to her husband's society, to bestow much
further attention upon literature.
Miriam was published in 1837. It re
ceived the best approval of contemporary
criticism, and a second edition, with such
revision as the condition of the author's eyes
had previously forbidden, appeared in the
following year. Mrs. Hall had not proposed
to herself to write a tragedy, but a dramatic
poem, and the result was an instance of the
successful accomplishment of a design, in
which failure would have been but a repeti
tion of the experiences of genius. The sub
ject is one of the finest in the annals of the
human race, but one which has never been
treated with a more just appreciation of its
nature and capacities. It is the first great
conflict of the Master's kingdom, after its
full establishment, with the kingdoms of this
world. It is Christianity struggling with the
first persecution of power, philosophy, and
the intei ests of society. Milman had attempt
ed its illustration in his brilliant and stately
tragedy of The Martyr of Antioch; Bulwei
had laid upon it his familiar hands in The
Last Days of Pompeii ; and since, our coun
tryman, William Ware, has exhibited it wi;h
in
112
LOUISA J. HALL.
prnver and splendor in his masterly romance
t.f The Fall of Rome ; but no one has yet ap
proached more nearly its just delineation
and analysis than Mrs. Hall in this beautiful
poem.
The plot is single, easily understood, and
s'eadily progressive in interest and in action.
Thrar-eno, a Christian exile from Judea,
dwells with his family in Rome. He has
two children, Euphas, and a daughter of re
markable beauty and a heart and mind in
which are blended the highest attributes of
her sex and her religion. She is seen and
loved by Paulus, a young nobleman, whose
father, Piso, had in his youth served in the
armies in Palestine. The passion is mutu
al, but secret ; and having failed to win the
Roman to her faith, the Christian maiden
resolves to part from him for ever. The
family are summoned to the funeral of an
aged friend, but she excuses herself for not
going, and the agitation of her countenance
arrests attention and leads to the most af
fectionate inquiries from Thraseno and Eu
phas. She replies :
My father ! I am ill.
A weight is on my spirits, and I feel
The fountain of existence drying up,
Shrinking I know not where, like waters lost
Amid the desert sands. Nay ! grow riot pale !
I have felt thus, and thought each secret spring
Of life was failing fast within me. Then
In saddest willingness I could have died.
There have been hours I would have quitted you,
And all that life hath dear and beautiful,
Without one wish to linger in its smiles :
My summons would have called a weary soul
Out of a heavy bondage. But this day
A better hope hath dawned upon my mind.
A high and pure resolve is nourished there,
And even now it sheds upon my breast
That holy peace it hath not known so long.
This night — ay ! in a few brief hours, perchance.
It will know calm once more — (or break at once !)
[Aside.
This is unsatisfactory ; their suspicions are
excited, and they urge her to dispel the mys
tery that invests her conduct. She says:
I can not — can not yet.
Have I not told you that a starlike gleam
Was rising on my darkened mind ] When Hope
Shall sit upon the tossing waves of thought,
As broods the halcyon on the troubled deep,
Then, if my spirit be not blighted, wrecked,'
('rushed, by the storm, I will unfold my griefs.
But until then — and long it will not be !—
Yet in that brief, brief time my soul must bear
A fiercer, deadlier struggle still ! — Ye dear ones !
Look not upon me thus but in your thoughts,
When ye go forth unto your evening prayers,
Oh, bear me up to heaven with all my grief:
Pray that my holy courage may not fail !
They renew their entreaties that she should
go with them to the funeral of their friend ;
but she will carry no " troubled soul" to the
"good man's obsequies," and answers to
Thraseno's inquiry where would she seek
for peace ? —
Within these mighty walls of sceptred Rome
A thousand temples rise unto her gods,
Bearing their lofty domes unto the skies,
Grac'd with the proudest pomp of earth ; their shrines
Glittering with gems, their stately colonnades,
Their dreams of genius wrought into bright forms,
Instinct with grace and godlike majesty,
Their ever smoking altars, white robed priests,
And all the pride of gorgeous sacrifice. [ascend
And yet these things are naught. Rome's prayers
To greet th' unconscious skies, in the blue void
Lost like the floating breath of frankincense,
And find no hearing or acceptance there.
And yet there is an Eye that ever marks
Where its own people pay their simple vows,
Though to the rocks, the caves, the wilderness,
Scourged by a stern and ever watchful foe !
There is an Ear that hears the voice of prayer
Rising from lonely spots where Christians meet,
Although it stir not more the sleeping air
Than the soft waterfall, or forest breeze.
Think'st thou, my father, this benignant God
Will close his ear, and turn in wrath away
From the poor sinful creature of his hand,
Who breathes in solitude her humble prayer ?
Think'st thou he will not hear me, should I kneel
Here in the dust beneath his starry sky,
And strive to raise my voiceless thoughts to him,
Making an altar of my broken heart 1
They are at length persuaded to leave her,
and they are scarcely gone when Paulus en
ters, with expressions of confidence and love,
which are quickly checked by the changed
expression of her countenance:
Paulus. Never, except in dreams, have I beheld
Such deep and dreadful meaning in thine eye,
Such agony upon thy quivering lip !
Speak, Miriam! breathe one blessed word of life;
For in the middle watch of yesternight
Even thus I saw a dim and shadowy ghost
Standing beneath the moon's uncertain light,
So mute — so motionless — so changed — and yet
So like to thee !
Miriam. My Paulus !
Paul. 'T is thy voice!
Praised be the gods! it never seemed so sweet.
Say on ! my spirit hangs upon thy words.
What blight hath stricken thee since last we met!
1//V. A blight that is contagious, and will fall
Perchance upon thy fairest, dearest hopes,
With no less deadly violence than now
It hath on mine. Paulus ! is there no word
LOUISA J. HALL.
113
These lips can utter, that may make thee wish
Eternal silence there had stamped her seal!
Paul. I know not, love ! thou startlest me ! —
no ! none !
Unless it be of hatred — change — or death !
And these — it can be none of these !
Mir. Why not ]
Paul. Ye gods, my Miriam ! look not on me thus !
My blood runs cold. " Why not," saidst thou 1 Be-
Thou art too young, too good, too beautiful, ["cause
To die; and as for change or hatred, love,
Not ti 1 I see yon clear and starry skies
R lining down fire and pestilence on man,
Turning the beauteous earth whereon we stand
Into an arid, scathed, and blackening waste,
Miriam, will I believe that thou canst change.
Mir. Oh, thou art right ! the anguish of my soul,
My spirit's deep and rending agony,
Tell me that though this heart may surely break,
There is no change within it! and through life,
Fondly and wildly — though most hopelessly —
With all its strong affections will it cleave
To him for whom it nearly yielded all
That makes life precious — peace and self esteem,
Friends upon earth, and hopes in heaven above !
Paul. Mean'st thou — I know not what. My
mind grows dark
Amid a thousand wildering mazes lost.
There is a wild and dreadful mystery7
Even in thy words of love I can not solve.
Mir. Hear me : for with the holy faith that erst
Made strong the shuddering patriarch's heart and
hand,
When meek below the glittering knife lay stretched
The boy whose smiles were sunshine to his age,
This night I offer up a sacrifice
Of life's best hopes to the One Living God !
Yes, from this night, my Paulus, never more
Mine eyes shall look upon thy form, mine ears
Drink in the tones of thy belov.'d voice.
Paul. \ e gods ! ye cruel gods ! let me awake
A.nd find this but a dream !
Mir. Is it then said ]
0 God ! the words so fraught with bitterness
So soon are uttered — and thy servant lives !
Ay, Paulus ; ever from that hour, when first
My spirit knew that thine was wholly lost,
And to its superstitions wedded fast,
Shrouded in dark-icss, blind to every beam
Streaming from Zion's hill athwart the night
That broods in horror o'er a heathen world,
Even from 'that hour my shuddering soul beheld
A dark and fathom'ess abyss yawn wide
Between us two; and o'er it gleamed alone
One pale, dim twink'ing star ! the lingering hope
That grace descending from the Throne of Light
Might foil in gent'e dews upon that heart,
And melt it into humlVe piety.
A1 as ! that hope hath faded ; and I see
The fatal gu'f of separation still
Between us, love, and stretching on for aye
Beyond the grave in which I feel that soon
This clay with all its sorrows shall lie down.
Union for us is none, in yonder sky :
Then how on earth ?— so in my inmost soul,
Nurtured with midnight tears, with blighted hopes.
With si ent watchings and incessant prayers,
A holy resolution- hath ta'en root,
And in its might at last springs proudly up.
We part, my Paulus ! not in hate, but love,
Yielding unto a stern necessity.
And I along my sad, short pilgrimage,
Will bear the memory of our sinless love
As mothers wear the image of the babe
That died upon their bosom ere the world
Had stamped its spotless soul with good or ill,
Pictured in infant loveliness and smiles,
Close to the heart's fond core, to be drawr. forth
Ever in solitude, and bathed in tears. —
But how ! with such unmanly grief struck down,
Withered, thou Roman knight!
Paul. My brain is pierced !
Mine eyes with blindness smitten ! and mine ear
Rings faintly with the echo of thy words !
Henceforth what man shall ever build his faith
On woman's love, on woman's constancy ? —
Maiden, look up ! I would but gaze once more
Upon that open brow and clear, dark eye,
To read what aspect Perjury may wear,
What garb of loveliness may Falsehood use.
To lure the eye of guileless, manly love !
Cruel, coM blooded, fickle that thou art,
Dost thou not quail beneath thy lover's eye 1
How ! there is light within thy lofty glance,
A flush upon thy cheek, a settled calm
Upon thy lip and brow !
Mir. Ay, even so.
A light — a flush — a calm — not of this earth !
For in this hour of bitterness and wo,
The grace of God is falling on my soul
Like dews upon the withering grass which late
Red scorching flames have seared. Again
The consciousness of faith, of sins forgiven,
Of wrath appeased, of heavy guilt thrown off,
Sheds on my breast its long forgotten peace,
And shining steadfast as the noonday sun,
Lights me along the path that duty marks.
Lover too dearly loved ! a long farewell !
The bannered field, the glancing spear, the shout
That bears the victor's name unto the skies —
The laurelled brow — be thine
Before the conclusion of this scene, which is
full of natural pathos and the illustrations of
a passionate fancy, they are interrupted by
Euphas, who suddenly returns to inform his
sister that the funeral party had been sur
prised by a band of Roman soldiers, some
slain, and others, among whom was their
father, borne to prison. The indignation of
Euphas is excited by finding Paulus with
Miriam, and she answers to hi" reproaches
Stay, stay, rash boy ! Alas !
The thickening horrors of this awful nigni
Have flung, methinks, a spell upon my soul.
I tell thee, Euphas, thou hast far more cause,
Proudly to clasp my breaking heart to thine,
And bless me with a loving brother's praise
Than thus to stand with sad but angry eye.
1.14
LOUISA J. HALL.
Hurling thy hasty scorn upon a brow
As sinless *s thine own — breaking the reed
But newly bruised — pouring coals of fire
Upon my fresh and bleeding wounds ! Oh, tell me,
What hath befallen my father ] Say he lives,
Or let me lay my head upon thy breast,
And die at once !
Euphas answers harshly, nrd by the aid of a
body of Christians, armed for the emergency,
he seizes Paulus as a hostage, and gjes to
the palace of Piso to claim the liberation of
Thraseno. Miriam, who had fainted during
this scene, on her recovery follows him on
his hopeless errand ; and we are next intro
duced to the palace, where the young Chris
tian is urging, on the ground of humanity,
the release of his father, in a manner finely
contrasted with the contemptuous fierceness
of the hardhearted magistrate. Piso is in
exorable, and Euphas reminds him of his son,
tells him that he is a hostage, and discloses
his love for Miriam. The Roman exclaims :
Knowest thou not
Thou hast but sealed thy fate 1 His life had been
More precious to me than the air I breathe ;
And cheerfully I would have vielded up
A thousand Christian dogs from yonder dens
To .SIYC one hair upon his head. But now —
A Christian maid ! W ere there none other 1 Gods !
Shame and a shameful death be his, and thine !
l']\i i>ft. It is the will of God. My hopes burnt dim
Even from the first, and are extinguished now.
The thirst of blood hath rudely choked at last
The one ailection which thy dark breast knew,
And thou art man no more. Let me but die
First of thy victims
Piso* Would that she among them
Where is the sorceress ] I fain would see
The beauty that hath witched Rome's noblest youth.
J'ln/>/i. Hers is a face thou never wilt behold.
JV.vo. I will. On her shall fall my worst revenge;
And I will know what foul and magic arts
Here Miriam glides in, and changes the whole
current of Piso's feelings, by her extraordina
ry resemblance to a Jewess whom he had
loved in youth and never ceased to lament.
He addresses her as the spirit of the object
of his early passion :
Beautiful shadow ! in this hour of wrath,
What dost thou here 1 In life thou wert too meek,
Too gentle for a lover stern as I.
And, since 1 saw thee last, my days have been
I ).•<>[> stepped in sill and blood ' What seekest thou ?
I have g.mvn old in strife, and hast thou come,
With thy dark eyes and their soul searching glance,
To look me into peace? It can not be.
Go back, fair spirit, to thine own dim realms!
He wuose young love thou didst reject on earth.
May tremble at this visitation strange,
Hut never can know peace or virtue more !
Thou wert a Christian, and a Christian dog
Did win thy precious love. I have good cause
To hate and scorn the whole detested race;
And till I meet that man, whom most of all
My soul abhors, will I go on and slay !
Fade, vanish, shadow bright ! In vain that look,
That sweet, sad look ! My lot is cast in b!ood !
Mir. Oh, say not so !
Piso. The voice that won me first!
Ob, what a tide of recollections rush
Upon my drowning soul ! my own wild love —
Thy scorn — the long, long days of blood and guilt
That since have left their footprints on my fate i
The dark, lark nights of fevered agony,
When, mid the strife and struggling of my dreams.
The gods sent thee at times to hover round,
Bringing the memory of those peaceful davs
When I behe'd thee first ! But never yei
Before my waking eyes hast thou appeared
Distinct and visible as now. Fair spirit !
What wouldst thou have ?
Mir. Oh, man of guilt and wo .'
Thine own dark fantasies are busy now,
Lending unearthly seeming to a thing
Of earth, as thou art.
Piso. How ! Art thou not she !
I know that face ! I never yet beheld
One like to it among earth's loveliest.
Why dost thou wear that semblance, if thou art
A thing of mortal mould 1 Oh. better meet
The wailing ghosts of those whose b!ood doth clog
My midnight dreams, than that half pitying eye !
Mir. Thou art a wretched man ! and I do feel
Pity even for the suffering guilt hath brought.
But from the quiet grave I have not come.
Nor from the shadowy confines of the world
Where spirits dwell, to haunt thy midnight hour
The disembodied should be passionless,
And wear not eyes that swim in earthborn tears,
As mine do now. Look up, thou conscience struck !
Piso. Off! off! She touched me with her damp
cold hand,
But 'twas a hand of flesh and blood ! Away !
Come thou not near me till I study thee.
Mir. Why are thine eyes so fixed and wild 1 —
thy lips
Convulsed and ghastly white 1 Thine own dark
Vexing thy soul, have clad me in a form [sina,
Thou darest not look upon — I know not why.
But I must speak to thee. Mid thy remorse,
And the unwonted terrors of thy soul,
I must be heard, for God hath sent me here.
PifO. Who, who hath sent thee here 1
Mir. The Christian's God,
The God thou knowest not.
7V.w. Thou art of earth !
I see the rose tint on thy pallid cheek,
Which was not there at first: it kindles fast!
Say on. Although I dare not meet that eye,
I hear thee.
Mir. HK hath given me strength,
And led me safely through the broad, lone streets
Even at the midnight hour. My heart sunk not
My noiseless foot paced on unfaltering
Through the long colonnades, where stood aloft
LOUISA J. HALL.
Pa'e gods and goddesses on either hand,
Bending their sightless eyes on me ! by founts,
Waking with ceaseless plash the midnight air!
Through moonlit squares, where, ever and anon,
Flashed from some dusky nook the red torchlight,
Flung on my path by passing reveller.
And HK hath brought me here before thy face ;
And it was HE who smote thee even now
With a strange, nameless fear.
Piso. Girl ! name it not.
I dee. ned I looked on one whose bright young face
First glanced on me mid the shining leaves
Of a green bower in sunny Palestine,
In my youth's prime. I knew the dust,
The grave's corroding dust, had soiled
That spotless brow long since. A shadow fell
Upon the soul that never yet knew fear.
But it is past. Earth holds not what I dread ;
And what the gods did make me, am I now.
What soekest thou 1
Euph. Miriam ! go thou hence.
Why shouldst thou die ]
Mr. Brother!
Piso. Ha ! is this so 1
Now, by the gods ! — Bar, bar the gates, ye slaves !
If they escape me now — Why, this is good !
I had not deemed of hap so glorious.
She that beguiled my son ! his sister !
Mir. Peace !
Na-ne not, with tongue unhallowed, love like ours.
Pro. Thou art her image; and the mystery
Confounds my purposes. Take other form,
Foul sorceress, and I will baffle thee !
Mir. I have no other form than this God gave ;
And he alrcidy hath stretched forth his hand,
And touched it for the grave.
Piso. It is most strange.
Is not the air around her full of spells?
Give me the son thou hast seduced !
M'r. Hear, Piso !
Th ; sjn hath seen me, loved me, and hath won
A h?art too prone to worship nob'.e things,
Although of earth; and he, alas! was earth's.
I strove, I prayed in vain. In a I things else
I might have stirred his soul's best purposes ;
But for the pure and cheering faith of Christ,
The:e was no entrance in that iron soul.
And I — amid such hopes, despair arose,
And laid a withering hand upon my heart.
I feel it yet ! We parted. Ay, this night
We met to meet no more.
E\if)h. Sister ! my tears —
They choke my words — else —
Mir. Euphas, thou wert wroth
When there was litt'e cause ; I loved thee more.
Thy very frowns in such a holy cause
Were beautiful. The scorn of virtuous youth,
Looking on fancied sin, is noble.
Pi*u. Maid!
Hath, then, my son withstood thy witchery,
And on this ground ye parted ]
Mr. It is so.
Alas ! that I rejoice to tell it thee.
Pffo. IN ay,
Well thou mayst, foi it hath wrought his pardon.
That he had loved thee would have been a sin
Too full of degradation — infamy,
Had not these cold and ag' d eyes themselves
Beheld thee in thy loveliness ! And yet, bold girl !
Think not thy Jewish beauty is the spell
That works on one grown old in deeds of blood.
I have looked calmly on when eyes as bright
Were drowned in tears of hitter agony,
When forms as full of grace and pride, perchance,
Were, writhing in the sharpness of their pain,
And cheeks as fair were mangled —
Euph. Tyrant ! cease.
•Wert thou a fiend, such brutal boasts as these
Were not for ears like hers !
Mir. I tremble not.
He spake of pardon for his guiltless son,
And that includeth life for those I love.
What need I more 1
Euph. Let us go hence at once. Piso !
Bid thou thy myrmidons unbar the gates,
That shut our friends from light and air.
Piso. Not yet,
My haughty boy, for we have much to say
Ere you two pretty birds go free. Chafe not !
Ye are caged close, and can but flutter here
Till I am satisfied.
Mir. How ! hast thou changed — •
PifO. Nay ; but I must detain ye till I ask —
Mir. Detain us if thou wilt. But look —
Pifo. At what 1
Mir. There, through yon western arch ! — the
moon sinks low.
The mists already tinge her orb with blood. -
Methinks I feel the breeze of morn e'en now.
Knowest thou the hour 1
Piso. I do ; but one thing more
I fain would know ; for, after this wild night,
Let me no more behold you. Why didst thou,
Bold, dark-haired boy, wear in those pleading eyes,
When thou didst name thy boon, an earnest look
That fell familiar on my soul 1 And thou,
The lofty, calm, and oh, most beautiful !
Why are not only that soul-searching glance,
But e'en thy features and thy silver voice,
So like to hers I loved long years ago,
Beneath Judea's palms ? Whence do ye come ?
Mir. For me, I bear my own dear mother's brow ;
Her eye, her form, her very voice, are mine.
So, in his tears, my father oft hath said.
We lived beneath Judea's shady palms,
Until that saintlike mother faded, drooped,
And died. Then hither came we o'er the waves,
And till this night have worshipped faithfully
The one, true, living God, in secret peace.
Piso. Thou art her child ! I could not harm theo
Oh, wonderful ! that things so long forgot — [now.
A love I thouzht so crushed and trodden down,
E'en by the iron tread of passions wild —
Ambition, pride, and, worst of all, revenge —
Revenue, that hath shed seas of Christian blood !
To think this heart was once so waxen soft,
And then congealed so hard, that naught of ill
Which hath been since could ever have the powei
To wear away the image of that girl —
That fair young Christian girl ! T was a wild love
116
LOUISA J. HALL.
But I was young, a soldier in strange lands,
And she, in very gentleness, said nay
So timidly, I hoped— until, ye gods !
She loved another ! Yet I slew him not !
I fled. Oh, had I met him since !
A';/////. Come, sister !
The hours wear on.
Piso. Ye shall go forth in joy —
And take with you you prisoners. Send my son,
Him whom she did not hear — home to these arms,
And gj ye out of Rome with all your train.
I will shed hlood no more ; for I have known
What sort of peace deep glutted vengeance brings.
My son is brave, but of a gentler mind
Than I have been. His eyes shall never more
Be grieved with sight of sin'ess blood poured forth
From tortured veins. Go forth, ye gentle two !
Children of her who might perhaps have poured
Her own meek spirit o'er my nature stern,
Since the bare image of her buried charms,
Soft gleaming from your youthful brows, hath power
To stir my spirit thus ! But go ye forth !
Ye leave an altered and a milder man
Than* him ye sought. Tell Paulus this,
To quicken his young steps.
Mir. Now may the peace
That follows just and worthy deeds, he thine !
And may deep truths be born, mid thy remorse,
In the recesses of thy soul, to make
That soul even yet a shrine of holiness.
Euph. Piso, how shall we passyon steelclad men,
Keeping stern vigil round the dungeon gate 1
Piso. Take ye my well known ring — and here,
the list —
Ay, this is it, methinks : show these — Great gods !
Euph. What is there on yon scroll which shakes
him thus ]
Mir. A name, at which he points with stiffening
And eyeballs full of wrath ! Alas! alas! [hand,
I guess loo well. — My brother, droop thou not.
Piso. Your father, did ye say ] Was it his life
Ye came to beg ]
Mir. His life ; but not alone
Tlu- life so dear to us; for he hath friends
Sharing his fetters and his final doom.
Piso. Little reck I of them. Tell me his name. !
[ A pause.
Speak, boy, or I will tear thee piecemeal !
Mir. Stay,
Stern son of violence ! the name thou askest
Is — is — Thraseno !
Piso. Well I knew it, girl !
Now, by the gods, had I not been entranced,
I sooner had conjectured this. Foul name !
Thus do I tear thee out, and even thus
Rend with my teeth ! Oh, rage ! she wedded him,
And ever since that hated name hath been
The voice of serpents in mine ear ! But now
Why go ye not? Here is your list: and all,
Ay, every one whose name is here set down,
Will my good guards forthwith release you.
Mir. Piso!
In mercy mock us not! children of her
Whom thou didst love •
Piso. Ay, maid, but ye are his
\ Whom 1 do hate ! That chord is broken now —
Its music hushed. Is she not in her grave,
And he within my grasp 1
Mir. Where is thy peace,
Thy penitence ]
Pi,so. Fled all — a moonbeam brief
Upon a stormy sea. That magic name
Hath roused the wild, loud winds again. Begone !
Save whom ye may.
M!.r. Piso ! I go not hence
Until rny father's name be on this scroll.
Puo. Take root, then, where thou art ! for by
I swear [dark Styx
Mir. Nay, swear thou not, till I am heard.
Hast thou forgot thy son 1
Piso. No ! let him die,
So that I have my long deferred revenge.
Thy lip grows pale ! Art thou not answered now ?
Mir. Deep horror falls upon me ! Can it be
Such demon spirits dwell on earth 1
Piso. Bold maiden,
While thou art safe, go hence ; for in his might
The tiger wakes within me !
Mir. Be it so.
He can but rend me where I stand. And here,
Living or dying, will I raise my voice
In a firm hope ! The God that brought me here
Is round me in the silent air. On me
Falleth the, influence of an unseen eye !
And in the strength of secret, earnest prayer,
This awful consciousness doth nerve my frame.
Thou man of evil and ungoverned soul !
My father thou mayst slay ! Flames will not fall
From heaven to scorch and wither thee ! The earth
Will gape not underneath thy feet ! and peace,
Mock, hollow, seeming peace, may shadow still
Thy home and hearth ! B ut deep within thy breast
A fierce, consuming fire shall ever dwell.
Each night shall ope a gulf of horrid dreams
To swallow up thy soul. The livelong day
That soul shall yearn for peace and quietness,
As the hart panteth for the water brooks, •
And know that even in death is no repose !
And this shall be thy life. Then a dark hour
Will surely come
Piso. Maiden, be warned ! All this
I know. It moves me not.
Mir. Nay, one thing more
Thou knowest not. There is on all this earth —
Full as it is of young and gentle hearts —
One man alone that loves a wretch like thee ;
And he, thou sayest, must die ! All other eyes
Do greet thee with a cold or wrathful look,
Or, in the baseness of their fear, shun thine !
And he whose loving glance alone spake peace,
Thou say'st must die in youth ! Thou know'st not
The deep and bitter sense of loneliness, [yet
The throes and uchings of a childless heart,
Which yet will all be thine ! Thou know'st not yet
What 'tis to wander mid thy spacious halls,
And find them desolate ! wildly to start
From thy deep musings at the distant sound
Of voice or step like his, and sink back sick —
Ay, sick at heart — with dark remembrances !
To dream thou seest him as in years fjone by
LOUISA J. HALL.
11?
When in his bright and joyous infancy,
His laughing eyes amid thick curls sought thine,
And his soft arms were twined around thy neck,
And his twin rosebud lips just lisped thy name —
Yet feel in agony 'tis but a dream !
Thou knowest not yet what 'tis to lead the van
Of armies hurrying on to victory,
Yet, in the pomp and glory of that hour,
/Sadly to miss the we'.l known snowy plume,
Whereon thine eyes were ever proudly iixed
In battle field ! — to sit, at midnight deep,
Alone within thy tent— all shuddering —
When, as the curtained door lets in the breeze,
Thy fancy conjures up the gleaming arms
And bright young hero face of him who once
Had been most welcome there ! and worst of all —
Pi&o. It is enough ! The gift of prophecy
Is on thee, maid ! A power that is not thine
Looks out from that dilated, awful form —
Those eyes deep flashing with unearthly light —
And stills my soul. My Paulus must not die !
And yet— to give up thus the boon !
Mir. What boon?
A boon of blood ? — To him, the good old man,
Death is not terrible, but only seems
A dark, short passage to a land of light,
Where, mid high ecstasy, he shall behold
Th' unshrouded glories of his Maker's face,
And learn all mysteries, and gaze at last
Upon th' ascended Prince, and never more
Know grief or pain, or part from those he loves !
Yet will his blood cry loudly from the dust,
And bring deep vengeance on his murderer !
Piso. My Paulus must not die! Let me revolve :
Maiden, thy words have sunk into my soul ;
Yet would I ponder ere I thus lay down
A purpose cherished in my inmost heart,
That which hath been my dream by night — by day
My life's sole aim. Have I not deeply sworn,
Long years ere thou wert born, that should the gods
E'er give him to my rage — and yet I pause 1 —
Shall Christian vipers sting mine only son,
And I not crush them into nothingness 1
Am I so pinioned, vain, and powerless 1
Work, busy brain ! thy cunning must not fail.
[Retires.
The tyrant promises to restore Thraseno to
his children, and the scene changes to where
Paulus is awaiting the result. The long so
liloquy in which he expresses his varying
moods reminds us somewhat too much of
the sombre reveries of Manfred, though its
original conceptions illustrate a power equal
to its independent composition.
Piso but keeps the word of his last prom
ise, for only the dead body of Thraseno is
restored to Euphas and Miriam. Paulus, in
horror, renounces his parent and his religion,
and, while a dirge is sung over the martyr,
Miriam dies.
The fine and poetical spirit which pervades
the poem is sufficiently apparent in these ex
tracts. There is in parts a slight want of
keeping, and it may be that the tone is gen
erally too oratorical, though the incidents
justify almost throughout the work a certain
dignity of expression, and the youthful ages
of the chief characters make appropriate a
more ornate style than would befit a greater
maturity of life.
Among the minor poems of Mrs. Hall per
haps the best is a Dramatic Sketch, in The
Token, for 1839. There has been no collec
tion of her fugitive pieces, and it is probable
that I have seen too few of them to form an
intelligent estimate of their character.
JUSTICE AND MERCY.
I SAW in my dream a countless throng
By a mighty whirlwind hurried along,
Hurried along through boundless space
WTith a fearful, onward, rushing sweep,
Looking like beings roused from sleep,
Till they met their Maker face to face.
Then, consciousness waked in each dark eye,
The mercy seat shone above on high,
And a timid, wild, but hopeful gaze
Those wandering spirits upward cast,
As it they had cause of joy at last,
When they saw the throne of judgment blaze.
"Justice!" they cried, with sound so clear,
The stars of the universe needs must hear ;
"Justice!" ag:iin, again rang out,
As of those who felt the hour had come
\\ hen earth-choked lips should no more be dumb,
An.l all God's worlds must hear their shout.
They were the souls of myriad men
Who had died, and none cared how or when,
Who had dwelt on earth as slaves — as slaves !
They were the men by death set free,
And flocking they came from their million graves,
They who on earth had scarce dared be,
Shaking the bonds from their half-crushed souls,
Uttering a cry that rent the poles,
For they knew that God would hear them then.
And afar I beheld a smaller band,
With hands claspt-d over their downcast eyes,
For before the blaze they could not stand.
And away had fallen their robes of lies.
Naked, affrighted, pierced with light,
They knew themselves and their deeds at las<
From their quivering lips to the throne of Right
A faint low cry of " Mercy !" passed.
Justice and Mercy ! hear them both '
Bondman and master both are here ;
Each asketh that he needeth most.
Now pass from my soul, thou dream of feai i
H8
LOUISA J. HALL.
A DRAMATIC FRAGMENT.
CHARACTERS.
KING HENKYTHK SKVK.VTH.
I.AHV CATUKIUNK. the K'i/1- <jf 1'erkia Warheck.
Cr,AKA, her AlUinlunt.
SIK FI.OIUAN, n l-'r,f,,,l "f 1',-rkin Wurheck.
I Catttt n,t ik, SeaeooM, in Cornwall.
Ttine.— T/tc Autumn of the year 1499.
r.ADY CATHKKINE and CLARA.
Lad// C. OPEX that casement toward the sea,
I gaze in vain along the hilly waste, [my Clara.
Watching the lone and solitary road
Until mine eyes are strained. The dull day wanes,
The sad November day — and yet there come
No ridings from niv lord ! Ay, that is well !
Sit thou where I have sat these many hours
In patience sorrowful ; and summon me
\Vit!i a most joyous cry, if thy kind watch
Be more successful. Sea ! for ever tossing,
Thv very motion is so beautiful,
So wild and spirit-stirring, as I turn
From the bleait, changeless moor, a 1 desolate,
I b'ess each wave that breaks against yon cliff.
Oh, mighty ocean ! thou art free — art free !
Dash high, thou foamy-crested billow, high !
That was a leap, whica sent the snowy spray
Up to yon overhanging crag, and forth
The screaming sea-bird sprang rejoicingly.
Clara, do not forget thy watch.
Clara. Nay, lady,
Return not yet ; thou shalt have warning swift,
If but a lonely traveller tread the heath.
Ludy C Yes : I will trust thee, and again look
Upon the glorious sea. In my youth's prime [forth
Is it not strange I thus should love to gaze
On a \vi;d ocean-view and frowning skv ]
Oh, sorrow, fear, and dark suspense, what change
Ye work in brief — brief space on careless hearts !
Methinka it was not many months ago
Childhood was round me with its rainbow dreams;
Then came the glittering vision of a court,
Dear Scut aim's court, where on my bridal hour
A uracious monarch smiled, and silently
Time stole the wings of love. My husband ! dearest!
Our happy hours were few. The echoes still
Rang back the harp's sweet nuptial melody,
When came a fearful voice, I scarce knew whence —
But terrible, oh terrible it was!
The dew scarce dry upon the snowy rose
I wore that morn, when it was wet afresh
With tears of parting ! 'T was but for a time,
He said, and we should meet again. My heart
(Min ITS to the promise sweet — " We meet again ;"
But when, oh when ] Ye vain remembrances!
Depart. Let me survey the heath once more.
The ocean hvc/.r lias fanned the pain away
From my hot brow, and now it wearies me
To look upon those restless waves. Their roar
Comes faintly up from yonder wet. black rocks,
Monotonous uiul hoarse; the mighty clouds
Sweep endless o'er the heavens ; I am sad,
And all things saddi-M me. They '1! s,-t him free,
They sure y will, my Clara! thou hast said it
Full twenty times this day, and yet again
I fair, would hear such empty words of cheer.
What is yon speck upon the dusky neatn?
Look — look !
Clara. I have been watching it, dear lady :
'T is but a lonely tree.
Lady C. No, no, it moves.
My heart's so.icitude doth give me sight
Keener than thine : it moves ; it comes this way.
What may its form and bearing be 1 It nears
Yon pile of rocks. Clara, such speed denotes
A horseman fleet. Peace, heart ! throb not so fast
Clara. The gray rnist settles down and mocka
It is a peasant, toiling through the furze, [thine eye.
Lady C. Nay, 'tis a mounted knight ! yon hil-
Thou wilt descry him plain. [lock passed,
Clara. 'T is so ! he rides —
He rides for life. Is 't not the jet-black steed
Sir Floriari mounts ]
Lady C. It is my husband's friend !
'T is he that rushes on with such mad haste.
Tidings at last — oh, Clara, I am faint. [comes
Clara. Be calm, my much-tried mistress ; joy still
Close upon apprehension.
Lady C. Is it so 1
I can not tell. Would bad news spur him thus 1
Cl'tra. Believe me, no. Be calm.
Lady C. I will— I will.
Is he not here 1 he 's wondrous slow, methinks.
Clara. The noble charger's spent ; his smoking
Are flecked with foam, and every gallant leap [sides
Seems as 'twould be his last. Why doth his rider
Cast back such troubled glances o'er the moor 1
Now to the ground he springs; the brave steed drops
Lady, look up ! Sir Florian is at hand.
Sir F. Where is the lady Catherine ? Oh, away !
Fly for your life !
Lady C. Fly 1 and from whom ? or why 1
Sir F. Question me not : I do conjure you, fly !
The danger's imminent; — moments are precious;
Down to the beach : take boat without delay.
It is your husband's bidding.
Lady C. Oh, thank Heaven
For those two words ! Am I to meet him, then 1
Sir F. No, ladv, no ! but I have been delayed,
Crossed, intercepted, and well nigh cut off,
Till on a moment's grace your life depends.
The king pursues.
Lady C. The king ! in mercy say,
Where is my husband ]
Sir F. London Tower held still
The princely wanderer, when the rumor came
That Henry's wrath burnt hot 'gainst thee, sweet
A nd that the p' ace of thy retreat was known, [lady,
Fly ! 't is thy husband's word.
Lady C. Imprisoned still !
Take rne to London, noble Florian. Nay,
How can I live but in that same dark Tower,
Where they have pinioned down my gallant lord,
My noble, much-wronged lord 1 Not yet set free '.'
He hath been pardoned once, if men told true.
Sir F. Come, fair and most unhappy !
Luili/ C. I have heard
Such fearful tales of bloody murders done
In the mysterious circuit of those walls !
What, didst thou leave him well ?
LOUISA J. HALL.
Sir F. In truth I did,
Though somewhat wan and wasted ; anxious, too,
For thy most precious life. Come, I conjure thee !
Cla. There is a strange and hollow sound abroad.
'T is not the sea !
Sir F. No, nor the sweeping wind.
It is the tramp of steeds fast galloping ! [now
Cla. They come ! like mounted giants looming
Through the dim mist.
Sir F. She 's lost ! Why lingered 1 1 [now
Cla. Quick ! there is time ; our startled menials
Bar fast the outer doors : yon staircase leads
Down through a vaulted passage to the shore.
Sti.l motionless, sweet mistress]
Lady C. Was he worn
And pale, saidst thou 1 Truly I do rejoice
The king draws nigh, for on my bended knees
Will I entreat to share my husband's cell.
Cla. She is distraught.
Sir F. Most gracious lady, list !
It is your blood this haughty monarch seeks
And with a vow against the innocent
His soul is burdened; do not wildly dream
That he will pity thee : and for thy lord
Lady C. Pause not ; I do conjure thee, speak !
Sir F. He hath been tried, condemned
Lady C. And slain ]
Cla. That shriek
Doth guide them hither.
Sir F. Nay, he lives as yet,
But vainly
Lady C. Oh, God bless thee for that word !
He lives ! Monarch of England, come !
Cla. Hark, hark !
That crash — the doors are burst !
Sir F. Her doom is sealed.
Enter KING HENRY unit Atte.ndtnas.
K. Hen. We are in time : the bird hath riot es
caped.
Those hoof-tracks made me fear some traitor fleet
Had warned her from the nest. Ha, frowning youth,
Whence comest thou 1 What may thine errand be,
That brought thee hither in such furious haste 1
SirF. Thou well mightst guess: 'twas from thy
bloody fangs
I vainly hoped one victim to withdraw.
She chose to trust thy clemency — alas ! [tongue
K. Hen. Alas, indeed ! bold heart is thine, and
As bold. But garb so travel-stained, fair sir,
Fits not a lady's bower; and thou 'It not love,
Perchance, to fix that pity-beaming eye
Upon my deeds of clemency. Take hence
This youthful rebel, and let manacles
Bind those officious hands.
[Exit SIR F LORI AX with two Officers.
Now for our work.
We will survey this far-famed Scottish lily,
Ere the sharp steel do crop its drooping head.
Indeed, she 's wondrous fair ! Hast thou no voice,
Pale suppliant 1 Its music must be rich,
And e'en more eloquent than those clasped hands,
That sweet, imploring face. Speak, for thy moments
Flit into nothingness, and if thou hast
One last petition for thy dying hour
Lady C. My husband, gracious king !
K. Hen. What, art thou mad 1 [hence
Lady C. Let me but see his face ! oh, drag me
With scorn and vio'ence to share his doom,
And I will bless thy name.
K. Hen. She hath gone wild
With sudden terror. He 's condemned, sweet lady
To die a shameful death,- and thou this hour —
This very hour — must perish in thy youth.
So bids my needful policy. Thinkest thou
Of aught but precious life, with such a fate
Darkening around thee, fair one ] Now, ask aught
But life —
Lady C. Life, life, mere breath ! and what is that]
Take it, my sovereign ! He who gave it me
Will call my spirit home to heaven and peace,
When this poor dust lies low. I have no prayer
To offer for my wretched life, if joy
Lie dead and buried in my husband's grave.
Is there no mercy for my gallant lord ]
Crowned monarch, speak ! what can thy mightiness
Grant thee beyond the holy power to bless ]
K. Hen. I must be stern in words as well as deeds.
I charge thee, if thou hast a last request —
A dying message to the noble house
Whence thou art sprung
Lady C. My home — forsaken home !
It was for him I left the heathy hills
Of my own Scotland ; there we had not perished
Thus in life's early bloom. May blessings rest
On the old quiet castle, and each head
Its gray roof shelters ! How those ancient halls
Will ring a wild lament, when comes the tale
That England's broken faith had widowed me,
And laid me, all unmourned, in English dust !
Thy fame, proud king, thy fame
K. Hen. Ha ! dost thou dare
Breathe such reproach 1 Hear, then, unthinking girl,
Since thou dost stir my wrath. Dost thou not know,
Daughter of Gordon's stainless house, that thou
Art to a mean and base impostor linked ?
Duped and beguiled by crafty words, thy king
Gave with his own pledged faith thy maiden hand
To Margaret's lowborn tool ; and he hath lied —
Lied his own life away, and stained his soul
With foulest perjury to steal the crown
Of glorious England from her lawful king.
The fraud is plain ; the forfeit, his mean life,
And men with eyes amazed shrink back from him
They followed in a dream. Awake thou, too ;
Die not in thy delusion.
Lad i/ C. Now be still,
My swelling heart ! speak calmly, quivering lips !
Man — I will call thee monarch now no more,
While ring thy words of insult in mine ear.
Thou dost defame the husband I adore,
And, in mine hour of fear and agony,
With cruel calumnies dost strive to rend
The one true heart that loves him yet. Enough .
Unkingly words were thine ; but I depart
Where earthly slanders can not reach mine ear.
Give orders : let me die.
K. Hen. Nay, it is past ;
It was a flash of momentary heat,
For of a fiery race I came. Alas ! I mourn
That in cold blood, fair lady, I must doom
LOUISA J. HALL.
A creature young and innocent as thou
To an untimely grave. And, if I gaze
Longer upon that brow ingenuous,
My purposes will surely melt. Farewell.
Lady C. Stay, stay! hear but a few brief words
Not for inyse.f I plead, not of my life, [my king
My worthless life, would speak ; but fame, his fame
Dearer than kingdoms to his noble heart,
Claiais of his wife one burst of warm defence,
[f royal bio id flow not within the veins
Of him I loved and wedded, that deceit
Was never his. The artful may have played
Upon his open nature, and have lured
Their victim to the toils for purposes
They dared not own ; and now they may forsake
Oh, God of heaven ! /never will desert
My mocked and much wronged husband, though
Shrink from him as a serpent. I may die [false men
A bloody death, but with my last, last breath,
Will still avow my trusting love, and sue
For mercy on his innocence.
K. Hen. Now, lady
Lady C. Oh, peace — unless I read thy restless
eye aright.
Wilt thou not look on me 1
Doth thy heart swell
With an unwonted fulness 1 Ha ! the vest
Heaves glittering on thy breast ! — thou then art
And, if tears choke me not, I will dare plead [moved,
Even for him — him whom I may not name.
K. Hen. Loosen my robe : away ; I will not hear.
Lady C. Thou must, thou wilt: though slander
ous tongues do say
Thy heart is steel, I will believe it not,
While on that gracious face I gaze. Thou 'It hear me.
His trust in flattering tongues for ever cured,
His wild hopes mock'd,his young ambition quench'd,
His wisdom ripened by adversity,
Forth from his prison will my husband come
A subject true and faithful to thy sway.
And I will lead him far away from courts,
Into the heart of lonely Scottish hills ;
There by some quiet lake his home shall be,
So still and happy, that his stormy youth,
With all its perilous follies, will but seem
As a dim memory of some former state,
In some forgotten world. He shall grow old
Holing my simple vassals with such power
As a brave hand and gentle heart may use ;
And never, never ask again, what b'ood
Flows in his veins; nor dream one idle dream
Of courtiers, palaces, and sparkling crowns,
While these fond lips can whisper winning words,
And woman's ever-busy love can weave
Ties strong but viewless round his manly heart.
Thou 'It hear it not, but in that blessed home
How will I murmur in my nightly prayers
The name of England's kiriLr !
He 's free — he 's pardoned !
J hat tearful smile all graciously declares
I am not widowed in my wretched youth !
I shall behold his noble face again.
God bless tl.ee, generous prince, and give thee power
Through long, longyears, to bind up bleeding hearts,
And use thy sceptre as a wand of peace !
My tears — they flowed not when I prayed — but now
The grateful gush declares, when language fails,
The ecstasy of joy !
Enter a .1 /..vwx ;•«;•, w/tn presents a packet ti
<•}>, n, ,ind, <ifur ciiiUii-' Itia ,:ije over it, t
the Kii,«. tie breaks »
tr/ts away abruptly.
C/a. The king is troubled.
K. Hen. {After a pause.} My sweet petitionei
look up !
Lady C. Alas !
I dare not.
K. Hen. Nay, why now such sudden fear 7
What sawest thou mirrored in my face ?
Lady C. A nameless terror robs me of all strength
That packet ! oh, these quick and dread forebodings !
Speak ! it were mercy should thine accents kill.
K. He?i, Thou hast a noble spirit : rouse it now
Daughter of Gordon.
Lady C. King ! say on — say all.
K. Hen. Art thou prepared ]
Lady C. What matters it ] speak, speak !
Prepared ? what, with this dizzy, whirling brain 1
Comes fortitude amid such fierce suspense ]
Tell me the worst — and show thy pity so.
K. Hen. Blanched, gasping, but angelic still ! —
What words
Can sheathe the piercing news 1 Thy suit
Was all too late, true wife ! He is in heaven.
[LADY CATHERINE faints
Pale rose of England !" — men have named thee
well.
What brought me hither 1 what 1 to murder thee ]
Oh, purpose horrible ! I can not think
This bosom ever harbored scheme so fierce.
)ark, bloody policy ! it is dissolved
Beneath the gentle light of innocence,
Melted by woman's true and faithful love,
Conquered by grief it is not mine to heal.
e dead may not return — but she may live !
Quit not the broken-hearted ! weeping maid.
She hath been true till death. And I will give
Shelter to sorrow such as these stern eyes
Ne'er saw till now. To my own gentle queen
Vill I consign the victim of harsh times, [rose !
^hou shouldst have bloomed in sunshine, blighted
And ne'er have been transplanted from thy bower
To waste such fragrant virtues mid the storm.
j°TE'~In the rel§:n of HeniT VI'- of Knaland. a pro
ender to the crown appeared in the person of I'erkit.
Varbeck, a youth who declared himself to be Richard,
uke of York, second son of Kdward IV. He was sup
ported l.y Margaret of York, the Duke of Burmindv and
Other powerful friends; and tin- ytmnz kin- of Scotland
went so l;,r as to hestow on him the hand of the lady
Catherine Gordon, nearly allied to the royal family, and
celebrated tor her beauty. Sh- remained fondly attached
to him through his reverses, when all England" had for-
Bdken him : and it is said that the cold hrart of Henry was
so softened by her loveliness, constancy, and sorrow for
her hn-hand. that he relented in his bloody purpo-e and
instead of takin- her life, as he had intended, placed her
honorably :n his queen's household. Wa^-heck had adopt
ed the title of the - 1'ale Rose of Kn-1 did ;" hut the people
tran.-lrnvd it to her.— Sec .Maekimo.-Us History of Sag
land, Philadelphia ed., p. 197.
ELIZA L. FOLLEN.
(Born 1797-Died 1859).
ELIZA LEE CABOT, a native of Boston, was
married on the fifteenth of September, 1828,
to the amiable and learned Charles. Pollen,
J. U. D., of Germany, then of the Divinity
School at Cambridge, and soon afterward
professor of the German language and liter
ature in Harvard College. This union was
eminently happy, and it continued more than
eleven years. Dr. Follen perished in the
conflagration of the steamer Lexington, on
the night of the thirteenth of January, 1840.
Mrs. Follen is the author of several works
in prose, of which the most important are
Sketches of Married Life, The Skeptic, and
a Life of Charles Follen, in one volume, pub
lished in Boston in 1844. She has also ed
ited the works of her husband, in four vol
umes. The larger part of her poems are
contained in a volume published in Boston,
in 1839.
SACHEM'S HILL.
HERE, from this little hillock,
In days long since gone by,
Glanced over hill and valley
The sachem's eagle eye :
His were the pathless forests,
And his the hills so blue,
And on the restless ocean
Danced only his canoe.
Here stood the aged chieftain,
Rejoicing in his glory :
How deep the shade of sadness
That rests upon his story !
For the white man came with power,
Like brethren here they met —
But the Indian fires went out,
And the Indian sun has set.
And the chieftain has departed,
Gone is his hunting-ground,
And the twanging of his bowstring
Is a forgotten sound :
Where dwelleth yesterday — and
Where is echo's cell 1
Where has the rainbow vanished ] —
There does the Indian dwell.
But in the land of spirits
The Indian has a place,
And there, midst saints and angels,
He sees his Maker's face :
There from all earthly passions
His heart may be refined,
And the mists that once enshrouded
Be lifted from his mind.
And should his freeborn spirit
Descend again to earth,
And here, unseen, revisit
The spot that gave him birth,
Would not his altered nature
Rejoice with rapture high,
At the changed and glorious prospect
That now would meet his eye ]
Where nodded pathless forests,
There now are stately domes;
Where hungry wolves were prowling,
Are quiet, happy homes ;
Where rose the savage warwhoop,
Are heard sweet village bells,
And many a gleaming spire
Of faith in Jesus tells.
And he feels his soul is changed —
'T is there a vision glows
Of more surpassing beauty
Than earthly scenes disclose ;
For the heart that felt revenge,
With boundless love is filled,
And the restless tide of passion
To a holy calm is stilled.
Here, to my mental vision,
The Indian chief appears,
And all my eager questions
Fancy believes he hears :
Oh, speak, thou unseen being,
And the mighty secrets tell
Of the land of deathless glories,
Where the departed dwell !
I can not dread a spirit —
For I would gladly see
The veil uplifted round us,
And know that such things be :
The things we see are fleeting,
Like summer flowers decay —
The things unseen are real,
And do not pass away.
The friends we love so dearly
Smile on us, and are gone,
And all is silent in their place,
And we are left alone ;
But the joy " that passeth show,"
And the love no arm can sever
And all the treasures of their souls.
Shall be with us for ever.
121
122
ELIZA L. FOLLEN.
WINTER SCENES IX THE COUNTRY.
TIIK short, dull, rainy day drew to a close;
No gleam hurst forth upon the western hills,
With smiling promise of a brighter day,
Dressing the leafless woods with golden light;
But the dense fog hung its dark curtain round,
And the unceasing rain poured like a torrent on.
The weaned inmates of the house draw near
The cheerful (ire; the shutters all are closed;
A brightening look spreads round, that seems to say,
INow let the darkness and the rain prevail —
Here all is bright ! How beautiful is the sound
Of the descending rain ; how soft the wind
Through the wet branches of the drooping elms:
But hark ! far oil* beyond the sheltering hills,
Is heard the gathering tempest's distant swell,
Threatening the peaceful valley ere it comes.
The stream that glided through its pebbly wav,
To its own sweet music, now roars hoarsely on ;
The woods send forth a deep and heavy sigh ;
The gentle south has ceased; the rude northwest,
Rejoicing in his strength, comes rushing forth:
The rain is changed into a driving sleet,
And when the fitful wind a moment lulls,
The feathery snow, almost inaudible,
Falls on the window-panes as soft and still
As the light brnshings of an angel's wings,
Or the sweet visitings of quiet thoughts
Midst the wild tumult of this stormy life.
The tightened strings of nature's ceaseless harp
Send forth a shrill and piercing melody,
As the full swell returns. The night comes on,
And sleep, upon this little world of ours,
Spreads out her sheltering, healing wings ; and man,
The heaven-inspired soul of this fair earth —
The bold interpreter of Nature's voice,
(Jivinu: a language even to the stars —
Unconscious of the th robbings of his heart,
Is still : and all unheeded is the storm,
Save by the wakeful few who love the night —
Those pure and active spirits that are placed
As guards o'er wayward man — they who showforth
God's holy image on the soul impressed —
They listen to the music of the storm,
And ho'd high converse with the unseen world:
They wake, and watch, and pray, while others sleep.
The stormy nin'lit has passed ; the eastern clouds
(ilow with the morning's ray: but who shall tell
The peerless glories of this winter day 1
Nature has put her jewels on — one blaze
Of sparkling liyht and ever-varying hues
Bursts on the enraptured sight.
The smallest twi^ w'ith brilliants hangs its head;
The graceful elm and all the forest trees
Have on a crystal coat of mail, and seem
All decked and tricked out for a holyday,
And every stone shines in its wreath of gems.
The pert, familiar robin, as he flies
From spray to spray, showers diamonds around,
And moves in rainbow light where'er he goes
The universe looks glad : hut words are vain
To paint the wonders of the splendid show.
The heart exults with uncontrolled delight:
The glorious pageant slowlv moves away,
As the sun sinks behind the western hi. Is.
So fancy, for a short and fleeting day.
May shed uprm the cold and barren earth
Her bright enchantments and her dazzling hues,
And thus they melt and fade away, and leave
A cold and dull rea'ity behind.
But see where, in the clear, unclouded sky,
The crescent moon, with calm and sweet rebuke
Doth charm away the spirit of complaint:
Her tender light falls on the snow-clad hills,
Like the pure thoughts that angels might bestow
Upon this world of beauty and of sin,
That mingle not with that whereon they rest:
So should immortal spirits dwell below.
There is a holy influence in the moon,
And in the countless hosts of silent stars,
The heart can not resist: its passions sleep,
And all is still, save that which shall awake
When all this vast and fair creation sleeps.
EVENING.
THE sun is set, the day is o'er.
And labor's voice is heard no more ;
On high the silver moon is hung ;
The birds their vesper hvmns have sung,
Save one, who oft breaks forth anew,
To chant another sweet adieu
To all the glories of the day,
And all its pleasures past away.
Her twilight robe all nature wears.
And evening sheds her fragrant tears,
Which every thirsty plant receives,
Whi'e silence trembles on its leaves:
From every tree and every bush
There seems to breathe a soothing hush,
While every transient sound but shows
How deep and still is the repose.
Thus calm and fair may all things be,
When life's last sun has set with me;
And may the lamp of memory shine
As sweetly on my day's decline
As yon pale crescent, pure and fair,
That hangs so safelv in the air,
And pours her mild, reflected light,
To soothe and bless the weary sight :
And may my spirit often wake
Like thine, sweet bird, and, singing, take
Another farewell of the sun —
Of pleasures past, of labors done.
See, where the glorious sun has set,
A line of light is lingering yet :
Oh, thus may love awhile illume
The silent darkness of mv tomb!
FRANCES H. GREEN.
FRANCES HARRIET WHIFFLE, now Mrs.
GREEN, was born in Smithfield, Rhode Is
land, and is descended from two or the oldest
and most honorable families of that state.
While she was very young, her father, Mr.
George Whipple, lost by various misfortunes
his estate, and she was therefore leit to her
own resources for support and for the culti
vation of her fine understanding, of which
some of the earliest fruits were poems print
ed in the gazettes from 1830 to 1835. Her
first volume was Memoirs of Eleanor El-
bridge, a colored woman, of which there
were sold more than thirty thousand copies.
In 1841 she published The Mechanic, a book
addressed to the operatives of the country,
which was much commended in Mr. Brown-
son's Boston Quarterly Review. In 1844 she
gave to the public Might and Right, a histo
ry of the attempted revolution in Rhode Is
land, known as the Dorr Insurrection. Dur
ing a part of the year 1842 she conducted
The Wampanoag, a journal designed for the
elevation of the laboring portion of the com
munity, and she has since been a large con
tributor to what are called "reform periodi
cals," pariicularly The Nineteenth Century,
a quarterly miscellany, and The Univercoe-
lum and Spiritual Philosopher, a paper " de
voted to philosophico-theology, and an expo
sition and inculcation of the principles of
Nature, in their application to individual and
social life." In the autumn of 1848 she be
came editress of The Young People's Journal
of Science, Literature, and Art, a monthly
magazine of an attractive character, printed
in New York.
One of the best known of Mrs. Green's po
ems is The Dwarf's Story, a gloomy but pas
sionate and powerful composition, which ap
peared in The Rhode Island Book, in 1841.
The longest and most carefully finished is
Nanuntenoo, a Legend of the Narragansetts,
in six cantos, of which the first, second and
third were published in Philadelphia in 1848.
This is a work of decided and various merit.
We have few good poems upon aboriginal
superstition, tradition, or history. The best
are Yamoyden, by Sands and Eastburn, Mogg
Megone, by Whittier, the Legend of the An-
dirondach Mountains, by Hoffman, Yonondio,
by Hosmer, Nemahmin, bv Louis L. Noble,
and Mrs. Green's Nanuntenoo, with which,
— though it is not yet published — may be
classed Mr. Street's admirable romance of
Frontenac. In Nanuntenoo are shown de
scriptive powers scarcely inferior to those
of Bryant and Carlos Wilcox, who have been
most successful in painting the grand, beau
tiful, and peculiar scenery of New England.
The rhythm is harmonious, and the style gen
erally elegant and poetically ornate. In the
delineations of Indian character and adven
ture, we see fruits of an intelligent study of
the colonial annals, and a nice apprehension
of the influences of external nature in psycho
logical development. It is a production that
will gratify attention by the richness of its
fancy, the justness of its reflection, and its
dramatic interest.
The minor poems of Mrs. Green are nu
merous, and they are marked by idiosyncra-
cies which prove them fruits of a genuine
inspiration. Her Songs of the Winds, and
sketches of Indian life, from both of which
series specimens are given in the following
pages, are frequently characterized by a mas
culine energy of expression, and a minute
observation of nature. Though occasionally
difluse, and illustrated by epithets or images
that will not be approved, perhaps, by the
most fastidious tastes, they have meaning in
them, and the reader is not often permitted
to fonjet the presence of the power and deli
cacy of the poetical faculty.
31 rs. Green has perhaps entered more
largely than any of her countrywomen into
discussions of religion, philosophy, and pol
itics. Her views are frequently original and
ingenious, and they are nearly always stated
with clearness and maintained with force of
logic and fitlicity of illustration. A consid
eration of them would be inure appropriate in
a reviewal of her prose-writings. Their pe
culiarities are not disclosed in her poems, of
which the only law is the sense of beauty.
J 1-23
121:
FRANCES H. GREEX.
NEW ENGLAND SUMMER IN THE AN
CIENT TIME.
FROM THE FIRST CANTO OF "NANUNTENOO."
STILLNESS of summer noontide over hill,
And deep embowering wood, and rock, and stream,
Spread forth her downy pinions, scattering sleep
Upon the drooping eyelids of the air.
No wind breathed through the forest, that could stir
The lightest foliage. If a rustling sound
Escaped the trees, it might be nestling bird,
Or else the po islied leaves were turning back
To their own natural places, whence the wind
Of the last hour had flung them. From afar
Came the deep roar of waters, vet subdued
To a melodious murmur, like the chant
Of naiads, ere they take their noontide rest.
A tremulous motion stirred the aspen leaves,
And from their shivering steins an utterance came,
So delicate and spirit-like, it seemed
The soul of music breathed, without a voice.
The anemone bent low her drooping head,
Mourning the absence of her truant love,
Till the soft languor closed her sleepy eye,
To dream of zephyrs from the fragrant south,
Coming to wake her with renewed life.
The eglantine breathed perfume ; and the rose
Cherished her reddening buds, that drank the light,
Fair as the vermil on the cheek of Hope.
Where'er in sheltered nook or quiet dell,
The waters, like enamored lovers, found
A thousand sweet excuses for delay,
The clustering lilies bloomed upon their breast,
Love-tokens from the naiads, when they came
To trifle with the deep, impassioned waves.
The wild bee, hovering on voluptuous wing,
Scarce murmured to the blossom, drawing thence
Slumber with honey; then in the purpling cup,
As if oppressed with sweetness, sank to sleep.
The wood-dove tenderly caressed his mate;
Each looked within the other's drowsy eyes,
Till outward objects melted into dreams.
The rich vermilion of the tanager,
Or summer red-bird, flashed amid the green,
Like rubies set in richest emerald.
On some tall maple sat the oriole,
In black and orange, by his pendent nest,
To cheer his brooding mate with whispered songs;
Whilo high amid the loftiest hickory
Perched the loquacious jay, his turquoise crest
Low drooping, as he plumed his shining coat,
Rich with the changeful blue of Nazareth.
And higher yet, amid a towering pine,
Stood the fierce hawk, half-slumbering, half-awake,
His keen eye flickering in his dark unrest,
As if he sought for plunder in his dreams.
The scaly snake crawled lazily abroad,
To revel in the sunshine ; and the hare
Stole from her leafy couch, with ears erect
Against the soft air-current; then she crept,
With a light, velvet footfall, through the ferns.
The squirrel stayed his gambols ; and the songs
Which late through all the forest arches rang,
Were graduated to a harmony
Of rudiniiMital music, href '.hing low,
Making the soft wind richer — as the notes
Had been dissolved, and mingled with the air.
Pawtucket almost slumbered, for his waves
Were lulled by their own chanting : breathing low
With a just-audible murmur, as the soul
Is stirred in visions with a thought of love,
He whispered back the whisper tenderly
Of the fair willows bending over him,
With a light hush upon their stirring leaves,
Blest watchers o'er his day-dreams. Not a sign
Of man or his abode met ear or eye,
But one great wilderness of living wood,
O'er hill, and cliff, and valley, swelled and waved,
An ocean of deep verdure. By the rock
Which bound and strengthen'd all their massive roots
Stood the great oak and giant sycamore;
Along the water-courses and the glades
Rose the fair maple and the hickory;
And on the loftier heights the towering pine — •
Strong guardians of the forest — standing there,
On the old ramparts, sentinels of Time,
To watch the flight of ages. Indian hordes,
The patriarchs of Nature, wandered free ;
W'hile every form of being spake to them
Of the Great Spirit that pervaded all,
And curbed their fiery nature with a law-
Written in light upon the shadowy soil—
Bowing their sturdy hearts in reverence
Before the Great Unseen yet Ever FELT !
The very site where villages and towns,
As if called forth by magic, have uprisen;
WThere now the anvils echo, hammers clank,
The hum of voices in the stirring mart,
And roar of dashing wheels, create a din
That almost rivals the old cataract —
As if its thunder had grown tired and hoarse
In striving to be heard above the din —
Two centuries gone, was one unbroken wild,
Where the fierce wolf, the panther, and the snake
A forest aristocracy, scarce feared
The monarch man, and shared his common lot —
To hunger, plunder from the weak, and slay ;
To wake a sudden terror ; then lie down,
To be unnamed — unknown — for evermore.
A NARRAGANSETT SACHEM,
FROM THE SAME.
A FOOTFALL broke the silence, as along
Pawtucket's bank an Indian warrior passed.
Awed by the solemn stillness, he had paused
In deep, reflecting mood. A nobler brow
Ne'er won allegiance from Roman hosts,
Than his black plume half shaded ; nor a form
Of kinglier bearing, moulded perfectly,
E'er flashed on day-dreams of Praxiteles.
The mantle that o'er one broad shoulder hung,
Was broidered with such trophies as are worn
By sachems only. Ghastly rows of teeth
Glistened amid the wampum. On the edge
A lace of woven scalp-locks was inwrought,
Where the soft, glossy brown of white man's hail
Mingled with Indian tresses, dark and harsh.
The wampum-be. t, of various hues inwrought,
Graced well his manly bosom ; and below,
His taper limbs met the rich moccasin.
FRANCES H. GREEN.
125
SASSACUS.*
THE orient sun was coming pioudly up,
And looking o'er the Atlantic gloriously ;
Old Ocean's bosom felt the living rays ;
A rich smile flashed up from his hoary cheek,
Subduing pride with beauty, as he turned,
In each clear wave, a mirror to the sky ;
And Earth was beautifu', as when, of erst,
In the young freshness of her vestal morn,
She wore the dew-gems in her bridal crown,
And met, and won, the exulting lord of Day.
The beauty-loving Mystic wound a'ong
Throiuh the green meadows, as if led by Taste,
That knew and sought the purest emerald,
And had the art of finding fairest flowers;
While his young brother, Thames, enrobed in light,
Lingered with sparkling eddies round the shore.
The sea-bird's snowy wing was tinged with gold,
And scarcely wafted on the ambient air,
As, lightly poised, she hung above the deep,
And looked beneath its crystal. With a scream
Of wild delight at all the wealth she saw,
Down like a flake of living snow she plunged ;
Then, momently upgleaming, like a burst
Of winged light from the waters, shaking off
The liquid pearls from all her downy plumes,
She soared in triumph to her wave-girt nest.
The spirit of the morning over all
Went with a quickening presence, fair and free,
Till every beetling crag, and steri'e rock,
And swamp, and wilderness, and desert ground,
W7ere instinct with her glory. Moss and fern,
And clinging vine, and all unnumbered trees,
That make the woods a paradise, were stirred
By whispering zephyrs, and shook off the dew ;
While fragrance rose, like incense, to the skies.
The soft May wind was breathing through the wood,
Calling the sluggish buds to light and life —
As, stealing softly through the silken bonds,
It freed the infant leaf, and gently held
Its trembling greenness in his lambent arms.
The eagle from his cloud-wreathed eyry sprang,
Soaring aloft, as he had grown in love,
Aspiring to the lovely Morning-Star,
That lately vanished mid the kindling depths
Of saffron-azure ; and the smaller birds
Plumed the bright wing with sweetest carolings,
Instinctive breath of joy, and love, and praise.
No sound of hostile legions marred the scene ;
Trumpet and war-cry, sword and battle-axe,
With all their horrid din, were far away,
And gentle Peace sat, queenlike — Was it so 1
* On a morning of May, 1637, the English, under Major
John Mason, attacked the fort of Mystic, one of the strong
holds of Sassacus. The Indians, believing the enemy afar,
had sung and danced till midnight ; and the depth of their
morning slumbers made them an easy prey. " The resist-
bnce," says Thatcher, '• was manly and desperate, but the
work of destruction was completed in little more than an
hour.'1 And again, "Seventy wigwams were burnt, and
five or six hundred Pequots killed.' Parent and child alike,
the sanop and squaw, the gray-haired man and the babe,
were buried in one promiscuous ruin." Sassacus, flushed
with conquest, with his followers returned just in time to
witness the expiring flames. After this, the fortunes of
the sachem rapidly declined ; and when his own hatchets
were turned against him, he fled with Mononotto to the
Mohawks, by whom he was treacherously murdered.
Behold yon smouldering ruin ! Lo. yon height !
The Pequot there his simple fortress reared.
And there he slept in peace but yester-eve,
And his fair dreams spake not of coming death!
Where are the hundred dwellers of this spot —
The parents, children, and the household charm;;,
That woke a soft, familiar magic here 1
The crackling cinders — one chaotic mass
Of death and ruin — utter all the wrong,
In their deep, voicefu! silence. Fire and sword,
Sped by the Yengees' hate, have only left
The ashes of the beautiful; or, worse,
The mangled type of each familiar form,
Looks grimly through the horrid mask of death !
There slumbers all that woke a thrill of love
In the firm warrior's bosom. Death stole on,
Swift in the track of Gladness; and young hearts,
Yet quick with rapture, in the halcyon dreams
Of youth, and love, and hope, awoke — -to die.
They grappled with the subtile element,
Then rushed on lance, and spear, and naked sword,
To quench with their hot blood the torturing flames.
The few strong warriors had grown desperate ;
But desperation could not long avail —
And nerveless valor fall beside the weak.
Mothers and children, aged men and strong,
Bore the fierce tortures of dissolving life,
And all consumed together; till, at last,
The feeble wail of dying infancy —
A muttering curse — a groan but half respired —
A prayer for vengeance on the subtle foe —
Were lost amid the wildly-crackling flames :
Then the mute smoke went upward. All was still,
Save the sweet harmonies that Nature woke,
Careless of man's destruction, or his pangs.
But hark ! the tramp of warriors ! They come !
Their loving thoughts, winged heralds, sent before
To dear ones clustering in their wigwams' shade,
That wooing them from the memory of their toils,
To watch their soft repose with eyes of love ;
While sweet anticipation sketches forth
One sunny hour of joy encircling all —
The rainbow-blessing of their clouded life —
More bright, more heavenly, for the gloom it gilds
But is there joy in that wildly piercing cry ]
The agonizing consciousness of wrong,
Not graduated, but with one fell scath,
Blasts now, like sudden lightning ; and the fire
Awakes the latent sulphur of the soul !
The horrid truth, in all its length, and breadth,
And height, and depth, before them lies revealed,
An utter desolation. They are mad :
Or more or less than man might not be so.
Great Sassacus draws nigh. The panther-skin
Parts from his bosom, and the tomahawk
Is flung off, with the quiver and the bow.
No word he utters ; for the marble lip
May give to sound no passage; but his eye
Looks forth in horror : all its liquid fires
Shoot out a crystal gleam, like icicles —
And not a single nerve is stirring now
In the still features, frozen with their pride ,
But, 'neath the brawny folding of his arms,
The seamed and scarry chest is heaving up.
Like a disturbed volcano. All he loved
120
FRANCES H. GREEN.
Sleep in the arms of Ruin. There they lie.
He knew that he was reverenced as a god —
That ori the roll of heroes, prouder name,
Or clothed with mightier majesty, was not,
Than iSassacus the Terrible. That name
The bronz d cheek of the warrior would blanch ;
There was a magic in its very sound
That made the bravest blood tun: pale as milk.
And curdle in its passage. SASSACUS ! —
When those dire syllables were uttered loud,
The vulture clapped her wings, and gave a scream.
By instinct scenting the far field of Death.
At his fell war-cry down the eagle came,
To perch upon some overhanging clilf,
And glory in bis glory. Her response
Echoed afar the thrilling call to strife,
As on her lofty battlements she sat,
Like some wild spirit of a kindred power.
Such was the fame that burnished his dark crest,
Such were the signs that marked the chief a god.
Had UK a weakness that could yield to grief,
The strong — the mighty — the invincible!
May he not rend affection from his heart,
Or trifle with his passions !
On he went
With half-averted eye — as what he sought
Among those mangled forms he durst not find.
Sudden there came a shadow o'er his brow —
An awful spirit to his flaming eye:
He stood before his threshold. Stretched across,
As the last horrid blow had checked her flight,
Lay his weak, gray-haired mother. Just below,
A pair of round arms, clinging to her knees,
Alone were left to tell him of his babe.
With one long, earnest, agonizing thought,
He gazed to gather strength for fiercer pangs ;
Then faltering step sped onward ; but again
Abruptly pauses, for his form is fixed,
Like some dark granite statue of Despair.
The delicate proportions, fair and soft,
Of his young wife, came suddenly to view —
Unmarred, as if to aggravate the more,
Save by one cruel wound beneath her hair
Upon the upturned forehead. Can it be
The gay young creature he but left at eve,
So very beautiful, is sleeping thus —
Cold — cold in death — irrevocably gone ]
Remeinbereth not that shadowy maze of hair
How dotingly he wreathed i*. yesterday ] —
Or that fair, ruby lip the tender kiss
That won him back, when he had turned away,
With all its tempting sweetness 1 She is dead ;
And all her garments and her flowing hair
Are dink and heavy with the waste of blood !
Her arms are folded on her marble breast,
A lovely, but an ineffectual shield;
The lids are lifted, and the parting lips
Are curved lieseeehingh , as when they sued
For meivv from tin- murderer — in vain!
He looked upon her, as if life would burst
In one long, agonizing, phrensied gaze;
The Muslin..- sight was madness: then he laughed,
In utter desperation, utter scorn!
He knew that Fate herself might never crush
A soul that could endure such pangs, and live !
Why starts he, as some yet-untroubled nerve
Had quickened for the torture1? Hush ! a wail
From yonder dying child ! — Can that arrest
A pride that seemed to glory in its pangs?
! Oh, gracious God ! his first-born, darling child,
' Whom he had nurtured with a chieftain's pride,
And doated on with all a father's love,
Lies at his feet — though mangled, living still.
A rapturous pang of momentary joy,
That this one, dearest treasure, yet might be
Spared to his bosom, shot through heart and soul
The struggling hope, in bitter mockery,
A meteor on the midnight of despair,
Lived for an instant — quivered — vanished — died- -
Leaving more utter blackness. Ere he bent
To lift the little sufferer in his arms,
The livid type of death was on his brow.
One look of recognition, full of power — •
The agonizing power of love in death —
Sped from the dying. With a piteous moan,
As if to show how much he had endured,
He lifted up his little mangled arm, [died :
And murmuring, " Father !" struggled, gasped, and
And Sassacus was martyred o'er again !
He breathed no prayer, he spoke no malison — •
But one hand lifted up the mangled boy
With the firm grasp of madness nerved to steel;
And in the other his sharp battle-axe
He swung above him with a dizzening whirl,
And thundered out the war-cry ! Then they turned
To the fell work of vengeance and of death.
Again I marked the warrior. He stood
Among the scenes of early triumph, where
His soul first wedded Glory — on the spot
Where, on his high hereditary throne,
He poised a sceptre that could sway the free :
Was yonder broken-hearted man a king] —
Forsaken, wretched, desolate, and crushed —
Hunted through all his fair paternal woods —
His own knives turned by Treason to his breast !
In the wide earth without a single friend,
Alone he standeth — like the blasted oak,
Mocked by the greenness that was once his own ;
A mighty ruin in a pleasant place —
A ruin, storm, or tempest, could not bow,
And waiting for the earthquake ! It shall come.
Where are his kindred 1 Yonder ashy mound
Looks forth at once their tomb and their epitaph.
His followers'? — They are fallen, or fled, or slaves.
His land ] — He has none. And his peaceful home"?
The mighty outcast is denied a grave !
His fathers' land — his own — contains no spot
Where he of right may lay his body down
To the long sleep his broken nature craves !
The white man's voice is echoing on his hills ;
The white man's axe is ringing through his woods;
And he is banished — ah ! he recks not where.
His step hath lost its firm, elastic tone,
But it hath caught a majesty from wo,
Such as would crush to atoms meaner hearts !
His features are like granite ; but hib brow,
Like the rude cliff on the volcano's front,
Is haggard with the conflict — written o'er
With the fell history of his burning wrongs.
The snow is falling ; but he heedeth not —
FRANCES H. GREEN.
127
[t is not colder than his stricken heart.
Behold him clinging to that little mound,
As if the senseless earth, that covers o'er
The ashes of the beautiful, might feel
The last strong heart-throbs that are beating there
Against its icy bosom. Doth he weep ? —
A few hot tears, yet freezing as they fall,
Are mingling with the hail-drops. It is o'er —
His first, last weakness. Yonder rigid form —
'T is Mononotto — beckons him away.
SONG OF THE NORTH WIND.
FROX the home of Thor, and the land of Hun,
Where the valiant frost-king defies the- sun,
Till he, like a coward, slinks away
With the spectral glare of his meager day —
And throned in beauty, peerless Night,
In her robe of snow and her crown of light,
Sits queenlike on her icy throne,
With frost-flowers in her pearly zone —
And the fair Aurora floating free,
Round her form of matchless symmetry —
An iriscd mantle of roseate hue,
W7ith the gold and hyacinth melting through ;
And from her forehead, beaming far,
Looks forth her own true polar star.
From the land we love — our native home —
On a mission of wrath we come, we come !
Away, away, over earth and sea !
Unchained, and chainless, we are free !
As we fly, our strong wings gather force,
To rush on our overwhelming course :
We have swept the mountain and walked the main,
And now, in our strength, we are here again ;
To beguile the stay of this wintry hour,
We are chanting our anthem of pride and power;
And the listening earth turns deadly pale —
Like a sheeted corse, the silent vale
Looks forth in its robe of ghastly white,
As now we rehearse our deeds of might.
The strongest of God's sons are we —
Unchained, and chainless, ever free !
We have looked on Hecla's burning brow,
And seen the pines of Norland bow
In cadence to our deafening roar,
On the craggy steep of the Arctic shore ; [flood,
We have waltzed with the maelstrom's whirling
And curdled the current of human blood,
As nearer, nearer, nearer, drew
The struggling bark to the boiling blue —
Till, resistless, urged to the cold death-clasp,
It writhes in the hideous monster's grasp —
A moment — and then the fragments go
Down, down, to the fearful depths below !
But away, away, over land and sea —
Unchained, and chainless, we are free !
We have startled the poising avalanche,
And seen the cheek of the mountain bianco,
As down the giant Ruin came,
With a step of wrath arid an eye of flame
Hurling destruction, death, and wo,
On all around and all below,
Till the piling rocks and the prostrate wood
Conceal the spot where the village stood ;
And the choking waters vainly try
From their strong prison-hold to fly !
We haste away, for our breath is rife
With the groans of expiring human life !
Of that hour of horror we only may tell — .
As we chant the dirge and we ring the knell,
Away, away, over land and sea —
Unchained and chainless — WP are free !
Full often we catch, as we hurry along,
The clear-ringing notes of the La^ lander's song,
As, borne by his reindeer, he dashes away
Through the night of the North, more refulgent
than day !
WTe have traversed the land where the dark Es
quimaux
Looks out on the gloom from his cottage of snow ;
Where in silence sits brooding the large milk-white
owl,
And the sea-monsters roar, and the famished wolves
howl ;
And the white polar bear her grim paramour hails,
As she hies to her tryste through throse crystalline
vales,
Where the Ice-Mountain stands, with his feet in
the deep,
That around him the petrified waters may sleep;
And light in a flood of refulgence comes down,
As the lunar beams glance from his shadowlesa
crown.
We have looked in the hut the Kamschatkan hatli
reared,
And taken old Behring himself by the beard,
Where he sits like a giant in gloomy unrest,
Ever driving asunder the East and the West.
But we hasten away, over mountain and sea,
With a wing ever chainless, a thought ever free !
From the parent soil we have rent the oak —
His strong arms splintered, his sceptre broke :
For centuries he has defied our power,
But we plucked him forth like a fragile flower,
And to the wondering Earth brought down
The haughty strength of his hoary crown.
Away, away, over land and sea —
Unchained and chainless — we are free !
We have roused the Storm from his pillow of air,
And driven the Thunder-King forth from his lair;
We have torn the rock from the dizzoning steep.
And awakened the wilds from their ancient sleep,
We have howled o'er Russia's desolate plains,
Where death-cold silence ever reigns,
Until we come, with our trumpet breath,
To chant our anthem of fear and death !
The strongest of God's sons are we —
Unchained and chainless — ever free !
We have hurled the glacier from his rest
Upon Chamouni's treacherous breast;
And we scatter the product of human pride,
As forth on the wing of the Storm we ride,
To visit with tokens of fearful power
The lofty arch and the beetling tower ;
And we utter defiance, deep and bud,
To the taunting voice of the bursting cloud;
And we laugh with scorn at the ruin we see •
Then away we hasten — for we are fre? t
12S
FRANCES H. GREEN.
Old Neptune we call from his ocean-caves
When for pastime we dance on the crested waves ;
And we heap the struggling billows high
Against the deep gloom of the sky ;
Then we plunge in the yawning depths beneath,
And there on the heaving surges breathe,
Till they toss the proud ship like a feather,
And I,i^ht and Hope expire together;
And the bravest cheek turns deadly pale
At the cracking mast and the rending sail,
As down, with headlong furv borne,
Of ail her strength and honors shorn,
The good ship struggles to the last
With the raging waters and howling blast.
WTe hurry the waves to their final crash,
And the foaming floods to phrensv lash ;
Then we pour our requiem on the billow,
As the dead go down to their ocean pillow —
Down —far down — to the depths below,
Where the pearls repose and the sea-gems glow ;
Mid the coral groves, where the sea-fan waves
Its palmy wand o'er a thousand graves,
And the insect weaves her stony shroud,
Alike o'er the humble and the proud,
What can be mightier than we,
The strong, the chainless, ever free !
Now away to our home in the sparkling North,
For the Spring from her South-land is looking forth.
Away, away, to our arctic zone,
Where the Frost-King sits on his flashing throne,
With his icebergs piled up mountain high,
A wall of gems against the sky —
vVhere the stars look forth like wells of light,
And the gleaming snow-crust sparkles bright !
We are fainting now for the breath of home ;
Our journey is finished — we come, we come !
Away, away, over land and sea —
Unchained and chainless — ever free!
SONG OF THE EAST WIND.
FROM the border of the Ganges
Where the gentle Hindoo laves,
And the sacred cow is grazing
By the holy Indian waves,
W'e have hastened to enrol us
In thy royal train, ^Eolus !
We have stirred the soul of Brahma,
Bathed the brow of Juggernaut,
Filled the self-devoted widow
With a high and holy thought —
And sweet words of comfort spoken,
Ere the earth-wrought tie was broken !
We have nursed a thousand blossoms
In that land of light and flowers,
Till we fainted with the perfume
That oppressed the slumbering Hours
Dallied with the vestal tresses
Which no mortal hand caresses !
\\ e have traced the wall of China
To the farthest orient sea ;
Ulessed the grave of old Confucius
With our sweetest minstrelsy ;
Swelled the bosom of the Lama
To enact his priestly drama.
We have hurried off the monsoons
To far islands of the deep,
Where, oppressed with richest spices,
All the native breezes sleep;
And in Ophir's desert olden
Stirred the sands all bright and goldei.
On the brow of Chumularee,
Loftiest summit of the world,
We have set a crown of vapor,
And the radiant snow-wreath furled
Bid the gem-lit waters flow
From the mines of Borneo.
Sighing through the groves of banyan
W7e have blessed the holy shade,
WThere the sunbeams of the zenith
To a moonlike lustre fade ;
There the fearful anaconda
And the dark chimpanzee wander!
We have roused the sleeping jackal
From his stealthy noontide rest ;
Swelled the volume of deep thunder
In the lion's tawny breast,
Till all meaner beasts fled quaking
At the desert-monarch's waking.
O'er the sacred land of Yemen,
Where the first apostles trod,
And the patriarch and prophet
Stood before the face of God —
Vital with the deepest thought,
Holy memories we have brought.
We have bowed the stately cedar
On the brow of Lebanon,
And on Sinai's hoary forehead
Turned the gray moss to the sun ;
Paused where Horeb's shade reposes,
Rifled Sharon's crown of roses.
We have blessed the chosen city
From the brow of Olivet,
Where the meek and holy Jesus
With his tears the cold earth wet —
Conquering all the hosts infernal
With those blessed drops fraternal.
We have gathered sacred legends
From the tide of Galilee ;
Lingered where the waves of Jordan
Meet the dark, unconscious sea ;
Murmured round the Hsemian mountains,
Stirred Bethulia's placid fountains.
On thy sod, Gethsemane,
We have nursed the passion-flower,
Stained with all the fearful conflict
Of the Savior's darkest hour ;
Stirred the shadows dense and deep
Over Calvary's awful steep.
We have breathed upon Parnassus,
Till his softening lip of snow
Bent to kiss the fair Castalia,
That lay murmuring below —
Then, mid flowers, went sighing on
Through the groves of Helicon.
FRANCES H. GREEN.
129
We have touched the lone acacia
With the utterance of a sigh ;
Tossed the dark, umbrageous palm-crown
Up against the cloudless sky ;
And along the sunny slope
Chased the bright-eyed antelope.
We have kissed the cheek of Beauty
In the harem's guarded bowers.
Where, amid their splendor sighing,
Droop the love'iest human flowers—
And the victim of brute passion
Languishes the fair Circassian.
We K*ve summoned from the desert
Giant messengers of Death,
Treading with a solemn cadence
To the purple simoom's breath —
Wearing in their awful ire
Crown of gold and robe of fire.
We have traversed mighty ruins
Where the splendors of the Past,
In their solitary grandeur,
Shadows o'er the Present cast —
Voiceful with the sculptured story
Of Egypta's ancient glory.
We have struck the harp of Memnon
With melodious unrest,
When the tuneful sunbeams glancing,
Warmed the statue's marble breast ;
And Aurora bent with blessing,
Her own sacred son caressing.
Through the stately halls of Carnac,
Where the mouldering fragments chime
On the thrilling chords of Ruin,
To the silent march of Time,
We have swept the dust away
From the features of Decay.
We have sighed a mournful requiem
Through the cities of the Dead,
Where, in all the Theban mountains,
Couches of the tomb are spread ;
Farmed the Nile ; and roused the tiger
From his lair beyond the Niger.
WTe have strayed from ancient Memphis,
Where the Sphinx, with gentle brow,
Seems to bind the Past and Future
Into one eternal Now ;
But we hear a deep voice calling —
And the Pyramids are falling !
Even the wondrous pile of Ghirzeh
Can not keep its royal dead,
For the sleep of ages yieldeth
To the busy plunderer's tread :
Atom after atom — all —
At the feet of Time must fall !
Prostrate thus we bend before thee,
Mighty sovereign of the Air,
While from all the teeming Orient
Stories of the past we bear :
Thou, great sire, wilt ever cherish
Memories which can not perish !
9
A SONG OF WINTER.
His gathering mantle of fleecy snow
The winter-king wrapped around him ;
And flashing with ice-wrought gems below
Was the regal zone that bound him :
He went abroad in his kingly state,
By the poor man's door — by the palace-gato.
Then his minstrel winds, on either hand,
The music of frost-days humming,
Flew fast before him through all the land,
Crying. " Winter — Winter is coming!"
And they sang a song in their deep, loud voice,
That made the heart of their king rejoice ;
For it spake of strength, and it told of power,
And the mighty will that moved him ;
Of all the joys of the fireside hour,
A: d the gentle hearts that loved him;
Of aiFections sweetly interwrought
With the play of wit and the flow of thought.
He has left his home in the starry North,
On a mission high and holy ;
And now in his pride he is going forth,
To strengthen the weak and lowly —
While his vigorous breath is on the breeze,
And he lifts up Health from wan Disease.
We bow to his sceptre's supreme behest ;
He is rough, but never unfeeling;
And a voice comes up from his icy breast,
To our kindness ever appealing :
By the comfortless hut, on the desolate moor,
He is pleading earnestly for the poor.
While deep in his bosom the heart lies warm,
And there the future LIFE he cherisheth ;
Nor clinging root, nor seedling form,
Its genial depths embracing, perisheth ;
But safely and tenderly he will keep
The delicate flower-gems while they sleep.
The Mountain heard the sounding blast
Of the winds from their wild horn blowing,
And his rough cheek paled as on they passed,
And the River checked his flowing;
Then, with ringing laugh and echoing shout,
The merry schoolboys all came out.
And see them now, as away they go,
With the long, bright plane before them,
In its sparkling girdle of silvery snow,
And the blue arch bending o'er them;
While every bright cheek brighter grows,
Blooming with hea th — our winter rose !
The shrub looked up, and the tree looked down,
For with ice-gems each was crested ;
And flashing diamonds lit the crown
That on the old oak rested ;
And the forest shone in gorgeous array,
For the spirits of winter kept holyday.
So on the joyous skaters fly,
With no thought of a coming sorrow.
For never a brightly-beaming eye
Has dreamed of the tears of to-morrow .
Be free and be happy, then, while ye may,
And rejoice in the blessing of to-day.
130
FRANCES H. GREEN.
THE CHICKADEE'S SONG.
O?f its downy wing, the snow,
Hovering, flyeth to and fro —
And the merry schoo' boy's shout,
Rich with joy, is ringing out:
So we gather, in our glee,
To the snow-drifts — Chickadee !
Poets sing in measures bold
Of the glorious gods of old,
And the nectar that they quaffed,
When their jewelled goblets laughed
But the snow-cups best love we,
Gemmed with sunbeams — Chickadee
They who choose, abroad may go,
Where the southern waters flow,
And the flowers are never sere
In the garland of the year;
But we love the breezes free
Of our north-land — Chickadee !
To the cottage-yard we fly,
With its old trees waving high,
And the little ones peep out,
Just to know what we're about ;
For they dearly love to see
Birds in winter — Chickadee !
Every little feathered form
Has a nest of mosses warm ;
There our heavenly Father's eye
Looketh on us fiom the sky ;
And he knoweth where we be —
And he heareth — Chickadee!
There we sit the whole night long,
Dreaming that a spirit-song
Whispereth in the silent snow ;
For it has a voice we know,
And it weaves our drapery,
Soft as ermine — Chickadee!
All the strong winds, as they fly,
Rock us with their lullaby —
Rock us till the shadowy Night
Spreads her downy wings in flight:
Then we hasten, fresh and free,
To the snow-fields — Chickadee !
Where our harvest sparkles bright
In the pleasant morning light,
Every little feathery flake
Will a choice confection make —
Each globule a nectary be,
And we'll drain it — Chickadee!
So we never know a fear
In this season cold and drear ;
For to us a share will fall
Of the love that blesseth all :
And our Father's smile we see
On the snow-crust — Chickadee !
THE HONEY-BEE'S SONG,
AWAKE, and up! our own bright star
In the saffron east is fading,
And the brimming honey-cups near and faj
Their sweets are fast unlading ;
Softly, pleasantly, murmur our song,
With joyful hearts, as we speed along!
Off to the bank where the wild thyme blows,
And the fragrant bazil is growing;
We'll drink from the heart of the virgin rose
The nectar that now is flowing ;
Sing, for the joy of the early dawn !
Murmur in praise of the beautiful morn !
Away, over orchard and garden fair,
With the choicest sweets all laden,
Away ! or before us she will be there,
Our favorite blue-eyed maiden,
Winning with Beauty's magic power
Rich guerdon from the morning hour.
Her cheek will catch the rose's blush,
Her eye the sunbeam's brightness;
Her voice the music of the thrush,
Her heart the vapor's lightness;
And the pure, fresh spirit of the whole
Shall fill her quick, expanding soul.
Joy, for our queen is forth to-day !
Brave hearts rally about her;
Guard her well on her flowery way,
For we could not live without her !
Now drink to the health of our lady true
In a crystal beaker of morning dew !
She will sit near by in the bending brake,
So pleasant, and tall, and shady ;
And the sweetest honey for her we '11 make —
Our own right-royal lady!
We '11 gather rich stores from th'e flowering vine^
And the golden horns of the columbine.
We heed not the nettle-king's bristling spear,
Though we linger not there the longest ;
We extract his honey without a fear,
For Love can disarm the strongest ;
In the rank cicuta's poison-cell
We know where the drops of nectar dwell!
Our Father has planted naught in vain —
Though in some the honey is weaker ;
Yet a drop in the worst may sti!l be found
To comfort the earnest seeker.
Praise Him who giveth our daily food —
And the Love that findeth all 'lungs good !
JESSIE G. McCARTEE.
JESSIE G. BETHUNE, a granddaughter of the
celebrated Isabella Graham — a daughter of
DivieBethune, a New York merchant, whose
life was a series of illustrations of the dignity
and beauty of human nature — and a sister
of the Rev. Dr. George W. Bethune, so well
known as one of our most eloquent preach
ers and accomplished authors — was married
at an early age to the Rev. Dr. McCartee,
who for many years has been minister of the
Reformed Dutch Church in Goshen, in the
county of Orange, on the Hudson. She has
published a few poems in the religious peri
odicals, and has written many more, for the
joy the heavenly art yields to those who wor
thily cultivate it. All her compositions that
we have read breathe of beauty, piety, and
content.
THE INDIAN MOTHER'S LAMENT.
ALL sad amid the forest wild
An Indian mother wept,
And fondly gazed upon her child
In death who coldly slept.
She decked its limbs with trembling hand,
And sang in accents low :
"Alone, alone, to the spirit-land,
My darling, thou must go !
" I would that I might be thy guide
To that bright isle of rest —
To bear thee o'er the swelling tide,
Clasped to my loving breast !
"I've wrapped thee with the beaver's skin,
To shield thee from the storm,
And placed thy little feet within
Thy snow-shoes soft and warm.
" I 've given tbee milk to cheer thy way,
Mixed with the tears I weep ;
Thy cradle, too, where thou must lay
Thy weary head to sleep.
" I place the paddle near thy hand,
To guide where waters flow;
For alone, alone, to the spirit's land,
My darling, thou must go.
" There bounding through the forests green,
Thy fathers chase the deer,
Or on the crystal lakes are seen
The sleeping fish to spear.
" And thou some chieftain's bride may be,
My loved departing one :
Say, wilt thou never think of me,
So desolate and lone 1
"I'll keep one lock of raven hair
Cul!ed from thy still, cold brow —
That when I, too, shall travel there,
My daughter I may know.
" But go ! — to join that happy band ;
Vain is my fruitless wo ;
For alone, alone, to the spirit's land,
My darling, thou must go !"
THE EAGLE OF THE FALLS
EMPRESS of the broad Missouri!
Towering in thy storm-rocked nest,
Gazing on the wild waves' fury — -
Wondrous is thy place of rest.
Lofty trees thy throne embowering,
Gloomy gulf around thine isle,
Mists and spray above thee showering,
Guard thee from the hunter's wile.
Walls of snow-white foarn surround it,
Crowned with rainbows pure and bright.
While the flinty rocks that bound it
Guard thy mansion day and night.
No Alhambra's royal splendor,
Palaces of G.eece or Rome,
E'er could boast of hues so tender,
Or of walls of snow-white foam.
Yet this lofty scene of wonder
Ne'er disturbs thine eagle gaze,
Nor its mighty voice of thunder —
'Tis the music of thy days.
Of its voice thou art not weary,
Of its waters dost not tire ;
Ancient as thine own loved eyry,
'T was the chorus of thy sire.
Songs of rapture loudly swelling
Laud the monarch on his throne,
But the music of thy dwelling
Chants the praise of God alone
Let sultanas boast their fountains,
Gardens decked with costly flowers
'Twas the Hand that buil.t the mountain*
Formed for thee thy forest bowers.
Queens may boast their halls of lightness,
Blazing with the taper's rays —
Crystal lamps of colored brightness,
Dazzling to their feeble gaze :
He who made the moon so lovely,
Called the stars forth every one,
Spread thine azure dome above thee,
Radiant with its pet-rless sun !
131
132
JESSIE G. MtCARTEE.
Empress eagle ! spread thy pinions,
Bathe thy hreast in heaven's own light,
Yet forsake not thy dominions —
God himself has made them bright.
THE DEATH OF MOSES.
LED by his God, on Pisgah's height
The pilgrim-prophet stood —
When first fair Canaan blessed his sight,
And Jordan's crystal flood.
Behind him lay the desert ground
His weary feet had trod ;
While Israel's host encamped around,
Still guarded by their God.
With joy the aged Moses smiled
On all his wanderings past,
While thus he poured his accents mild
Upon the mountain-blast :
" I see them all before me now —
The city and the plain,
From where bright Jordan's waters flow,
To yonder boundless main.
" Oh ! there the lovely promised land
With milk and honey flows ;
Now, now my weary, murmuring band
Shall find their sweet repose.
" There groves of palm and myrtle spread
O'er valleys fair and wide ;
The lofty cedar rears its head
On every mountain-side.
" For them the rose of Sharon flings
Her fragrance on the gale ;
And there the golden lily springs,
The lily of the vale.
"Amid the olive's fruitful boughs
Is heard a song of love,
For there doth build and breathe her vows
The gentle turtle-dove.
" For them shall bloom the clustering vine,
The fig-tree shed her flowers,
The citron's golden treasures shine
From out her greenest bowers.
" For them, for them, but not for me —
Their fruits I may not eat ;
Not Jordan's stream, nor yon bright sea,
Shall lave my pilgrim feet.
•' 'Tis well, 'tis well, my task is done,
Since Israel's sons are blest :
Father, receive thy dying one
To thine eternal rest !"
Alone he bade the world farewell,
To God his spirit fled.
Now to your tents, O Israel,
And mourn your prophet dead !
HOW BEAUTIFUL IS SLEEP!
How beautiful is sleep !
Upon its mother's breast,
How sweet the infant's rest !
And who but she can tell how dear
Her first-born's breathings 'tis to hear?
Gentle babe, prolong thy s! umbers,
When the moon her light doth shed ;
Still she rocks thy cradle-bed,
Singing in melodious numbers,
Lulling thee with prayer or hymn,
When all other eyes are dim.
How beautiful is sleep !
Behold the merry boy :
His dreams are full of joy;
He breaks the stillness of the night
With tuneful laugh of wild delight.
E'en in sleep his sports pursuing
\ Through the woodland's leafy wild,
Now he roams a happy child,
Flowrets all his pathway strewing;
And the morning's balmy air
Brings to him no toil or care.
How beautiful is sleep !
Where youthful Jacob slept,
Angels their bright watch kept,
And visions to his soul were given
That led him to the gate of heaven.
Exiled pilgrim, many a morrow,
When thine earthly schemes were crossed^
Mourning o'er thy loved and lost,
Thou didst sigh with holy sorrow
For that blessed hour of prayer,
And exclaim, " God met me there !"
How blessed was that sleep
The sinless Savior knew !
In vain the storm-winds blew,
Till he awoke to others' woes,
And hushed the billows to repose.
Why did ye the Master waken ]
Faithless ones ! there came an hour,
When, alone in mountain bower,
By his loved ones all forsaken,
He was left to pray and weep,
When ye all were wrapped in sleep.
How beautiful is sleep —
The sleep that Christians know !
Ye mourners, cease your wo,
While soft upon his Savior's breast
The righteous sinks to endless rest.
Let him go : the day is breaking !
Watch no more around his bed,
For his parted soul hath fled.
Bright will be his heavenly waking,
And the morn that greets his sight
Never ends in death or night
CYNTHIA TAGGART.
(Born 1801-Died 1849).
THE painfully in. cresting history of this
unfortunate woman has been vvritten by the
Rev. James C. Richmond, in a little work
entitled The Rhode Island Cottage, and in a
brief autobiography prefixed to the editions
of her poems published in 1834 and 1848.
She is the daughter of a soldier, whose prop
erty was destroyed during the Revolution,
and who died in old age and poverty at a
place near the seashore, about six miles from
Newport, where he had lived in pious resig
nation amid trials that would have wrecked
a less vigorous and trustful nature. Miss
Taggart's education was very slight, and un
til sickness deprived her of all other occupa
tion, about the year 1822, when she was nine
teen years of age, she appears never to have
thought of literary composition. My friend
Dr. John W. Francis writes to me of her :
"An intimate acquaintance, derived from
professional observation, has long rendered
me well informed of the remarkable circum
stances connected with the severe chronic
infirmities of CYNTHIA TAGGART. From her
early infancy, during the period of her ado
lescence, and indeed through the whole dura
tion of her life, she has been the victim of
almost, unrecorded anguish. The annals of
medical philosophy may be searched in vain
for a more striking example than the case
of this lady affords of that distinctive twofold
state of vitality with which we are endowed,
the intellectual and the physical being. The
precarious tenure by which they have con
tinued so long united in so frail a tenement,
must remain matter of astonishment to ev
ery beholder ; and when reflection is sum
moned to the contemplation of the extraor
dinary manifestations of thought which un
der such a state of protracted and incurable
suffering she often exhibits, psychological
science encounters a problem of most dif
ficult solution. Mind seems independent
of matter, and intellectual triumphs appear
to be within the reach of efforts unaided by
the ordinary resources of corporeal organiza
tion. That this condition must ere long ter
minate disastrously is certain ; yet the phe
nomena of mind amid the ruins of the body
constitute a subject of commanding interest
to every philanthropist. Churchill has truly
said, in his epistle to Hogarth:
' With curious art the brain too finely wrought,
Preys on herself, and is destroyed by thought.' "
Miss Taggart and a widowed sister, who
is also an invalid, still live in their paternal
home by the seashore, and they await with
pious resignation the only change that can
free them from suffering. The poems that
are here quoted have sufficient merit to in
terest the reader of taste, though he forget
the extraordinary circumstances under which
they were produced. Miss Taggart's poems
have passed through three editions.
ODE TO THE POPPY.
THOUGH varied wreaths of myriad hues,
As beams of mingling light,
Sparkle replete with pearly dews,
Waving their tinted leaves profuse,
To captivate the sight ;
Though fragrance, sweet exhaling, blend
With the soft, balmy air,
And gentle zephyrs, wafting wide
Their spicy odors bear ;
While to the eye,
Delightingly,
Each floweret laughing blooms,
And o'er the fields
Prolific, yields
Its increase of perfumes;
Yet one alone o'er all the plain,
With lingering eye, I view ;
Hasty I pass the brightest bower,
Heedless of each attractive flower,
Its brilliance to pursue.
No odors svveev proclaim the spot
Where its soft leaves unfold ;
Nor mingled hues of beauty bright
Charm and allure the captive sight
With forms and tints untold.
One simple hue the plant portrays
Of glowing radiance rare,
Fresh as the roseate morn displays,
And seeming sweet and fair.
133
CYNTHIA TAGGART.
But closer pressed, an odorous breath
Repels the rover gay ;
And from her hand witli eager haste
'T is careless thrown away ;
And thoughtless that in evil hour
Disease may happiness devour,
And her fairy form, elastic now,
To Misery's wand may helpless how.
Then Reason leads wan Sorrow forth
To seek the lonely flower;
And blest Experience kindly proves
Its mitigating power.
Then its bright hue the sight can trace,
The brilliance of its bloom;
Though misery veil the weeping eyes,
Though sorrow choke the breath with sighs,
And life deplore its doom.
This magic flower
In desperate hour
A balsam mild shall yield,
When the sad, sinking heart
Feels every aid depart,
And every gate of hope for ever sealed.
Then still its potent charm
Each agony disarm,
And its all-healing power shall respite give :
The frantic sufferer, then,
Convulsed and wild with pain,
Shall own the sovereign remedy, and live.
The dews of slumber now
Rest on her aching brow,
And o'er the languid lids balsamic fall;
While fainting Nature hears,
With dissipated fears,
The lowly accents of soft Somnus' call.
Then will Affection twine
Around this kindly flower;
And grateful Memory keep
How, in the arms of Sleep,
Affliction lost its power.
INVOCATION TO HEALTH.
O HEALTH, thy succoring aid extend
While low with bleeding heart I bend,
And on thine every means attend,
And sue with streaming eyes;
But more remote thou fliest away,
The humbler I thine influence pray :
And expectation dies.
Twice three long years of life have gone,
Since thy loved presence was withdrawn,
And I to grief resigned;
Laid on a couch of lingering pain,
Wrhere stern Disease's torturing chain
Has every limb confined
Oh bathe my burning temples now,
And cool the scorching of my brow,
And light the rayless eye;
My strength revive with thine own might,
*nd with thy footsteps firm and light
Oh bear me to thy radiant height,
W'hcre, soft reposing, lie
Mild peace, and happiness, and joy,
And Nature's sweets that never cloy,
Unmixed with any dire alloy —
Leave me not thus to die !
AUTUMN.
Now Autumn tints the scene
With sallow hues serene ;
And o'er the sky
Fast hurrying, fly
Dark, sombre clouds, that pour
From far the roaring din ;
The rattling rain and hail, .
With the deep-sounding wail
Of wild and warring melodies, begin.
The wind flies fitful through the forest-trees
M ith hollow howlings and in wrathful mood ;
As when some maniac fierce, disdaining ease.
Tears with convulsive power,
In horrid Fury's hour,
His locks dishevelled ; and a chilling moan
Breathes from his tortured breast, with dread anJ
dismal tone.
Thus the impetuous blast
Doth from the woodlands tear
The leaves, when Summer's reign is past,
And sings aloud the requiem of Despair ;
Pours ceaseless the reverberated sigh,
WThile past the honors of the forest fly,
Kiss the low ground, and flutter, shrink, and die
ON A STORM.
THE harsh, terrific howling Storm,
With its wild, dreadful, dire alarm,
Turns pale the cheek of Mirth ;
And low it bows the lofty trees,
And their tall branches bend with ease
To kiss their parent Earth.
The rain and hail in torrents pour ;
The furious winds impetuous roar —
In hollow murmurs clash.
The shore adjacent joins the sound,
And angry surges deep resound,
And foaming billows dash.
Yet ocean doth no fear impart,
But soothes my anguish-swollen heart,
And calms my feverish brain ;
It seems a sympathizing friend,
That doth with mine its troubles blend,
To mitigate my pain.
In all the varying shades of wo,
The night relief did ne'er bestow,
Nor have I respite seen :
Then welcome, Storm, loud, wild, and rude
To me thou art more kind and good
Than aught that is serena.
FRANCESCA CANFIELD.
(Born 1803-Died 1823).
FRANCESCA ANNA PASCALIS, a daughter of
Dr. FeJix Pascalis, an Italian physician and
scholar, who had married a native of Phila
delphia, and resided several years in that city,
was born in August, 1803. While she was
a child her parents removed to New York,
where Dr. Pascalis was conspicuous not only
for his professional abilities, but for his wri
tings upon various curious and abstruse sub
jects in philosophy, and was intimate with
many eminent persons, among whom was
Dr. Samuel L. Mitchill, who was so pleased
with Francesca, that in 1815, when she was
in the twelfth year of her age, he addressed
to her the following playful and characteris
tic Valentine :
Descending snows the earth o'erspread,
Keen blows the northern blast ;
Condensing clouds scowl over head,
The tempest gathers fast.
But soon the icy mass shall melt,
The winter end his reign,
The sun's reviving warmth be felt,
And nature smile again.
The plants from torpid sleep shall wake,
And, nursed by vernal showers,
Their yearly exhibition make
Of foliage and of flowers.
So you an opening bud appear,
Whose bloom and verdure shoot,
To load Francesca's growing year
With intellectual fruit.
The feathered tribes shall flit along,
And thicken on the trees,
Till air shall undulate with song,
Till music stir the breeze.
Thus, like a charming bird, your lay
The listening ear shall greet,
And render social circles gay,
Or make retirement sweet.
Then warblers chirp, and roses ope,
To entertain my fair,
Till nobler themes engage her hope,
And occupy her care.
In school Miss Pascalis was particularly
distinguished for the facility with which she
acquired languages. At an early period she
translated with ease and elegance from the
French, Italian, Spanish, and. Portuguese,
and her instinctive appreciation of the har
monies of her native tongut was fee delicate
that her English compositions, in both prose
and verse, were singularly musical as well
as expressive and correct. The version of a
French song, " Quand revcrrai-je en un jour,"
etc. is among the memorials of her fourteenth
year, and though much less compact than the
original, it is interesting as an illustration ol
her own fine and precocious powers.
While yet at school Miss Pascalis trans
lated for a friend a volume from Lavater, and
soon afterward she made a beautiful English
version of the Roman Nights from Le Notti
Romane al Sepolcro Dei Scipioni of Ales-
sandro Verri. She also translated The Soli
tary and The Vine Dresser from the French,
and wrote some original poems in Italian
which were much praised by judicious critics.
She was a frequent contributor, under vari
ous signatures, to the literary journals ; and
among her pieces for this period that are
preserved in Mr. Knapp's biography, is an
address to her friend Mitchill, which pur
ported to be from Le Brun.
A " marriage of convenience" was arranged
for Miss Pascalis with Mr. Canfield, a broker,
who after a few months became a bankrupt,
and could never retrieve his fortunes. She
bore her disappointments without complain-
in o-, and when her husband establi shed a finan
cial and commercial gazette, she labored in
dustriously to make it attractive by literature;
but there was a poor opportunity among ta
bles of currency and trade fur the display of
her graceful abilities, and her writings prob
ably attracted little attention. She was a
good pianist, and she painted with such skill
that some of her copies of old masters de
ceived clever artists. Her accomplishments
however failed to invest with happiness a
life of which the ambitious flowers had been
so early blighted, and yielding to consump
tion, which can scarcely enter the home of
a cheerful spirit, she died on the twenty-
eighth of May, 1823, before completing the
twentieth year of her age.
Dr. Pascalis, whose chief hopes wei» cen
tred in his daughter, abandoned his pursuits.
136
FRANCESCA CANFIELD.
and after lingering through ten disconsolate
years, died in the summer of 1833 ; and the
death of her husband, in the following au
tumn, prevented the publication of an edition
of her works, which he had prepared for thai
purpose.
TO DR. M1TCHILL.
WRITTEN IN HER SEVENTEENTH YEAR.
MITCHILL, although the envious frown,
Their idle wrath disdain !
Upon thy bright and pure renown,
They can not cast a stain.
Ida, the heaven-crowned, feels the storm
Rave fiercely round her towering form,
Her brow it can not gain,
Calm, sonny, in majestic pride,
It marks the powerless blast subside.
And didst thou ever hope to stand
So glorious and so high,
Receive all honor and command,
Nor meet a jealous eye '!
No, thou must expiate thy fame,
Thy noble, thy exalted name ;
Yet pass thou proudly by !
The torrent may with vagrant force
Disturb, but can not change thy course.
Or, shou'.dst thou dread the threats to brave
Of malice, wilful, dire,
Break thou the sceptre genius gave,
And quench thy spirit's fire ;
Down from thy heights of soul descend,
Thy flaming pinions earthward bend,
Fulfil thy foe's desire;
Thy immortality contemn,
And walk in common ways with them.
The lighter tasks of wit and mind
Let fickle Taste adore ;
But Genius' flight is unconfined
O'er prostrate time to soar.
How glows he, when Ambition tears
The veil from gone and coming years ;
While ages past before,
To him their future being trust,
Though empires crumble into dust.
Without this magic, which the crowd
Nor comprehend, nor feel,
Cou'.d Genius' son have ever vowed
His ductile heart to steel,
'Gainst ail that leads the human breast,
To turn to Indo'ence and rest;
From Science' haunts to steal,
To beauty, wealth, and ease, and cheer-
All that delight the senses here 1
And thus he earns a meed of praise
From nations yet unborn ;
Still he, whom present pomp repays,
His arduous toil may scorn;
But wiser, sure, than hoard the rose,
Which low for each way fare! blows,
And lives a summer morn,
To climb me rocky mountain way
And gather the unfading bay.
Yet wo for him whose mental worth
Fame's thousand tongues resound !
While living, every worm of earth
Seems privileged to wound.
His victory not the less secure,
Let him the strife with nerve endure,
In death his triumph found ;
Then worlds shall with each other vie,
To spread the name that can not die.
EDITH.
Bv those blue eyes that shine
Dovelike and innocent,
Yet with a lustre to their softness lent
By the chaste fire of guileless purity,
And by the rounded temple's symmetry;
And by the auburn locks, disposed apart,
(Like Virgin Mary's pictured o'er the shrine,)
In simple negligence of art ;
By the young smile on lips whose accents fall
With dulcet music, bland to all,
Like downward floating blossoms from the trees
Detached in silver showers by playful breeze ;
And by thy cheek, ever so purely pale,
Save when thy heart with livelier kindness glows;
By its then tender bloom, whose delicate hue,
Is like the morning's tincture of the rose,
The snowy veils of the gossamer mist seen through;
And by the flowing outline's grace,
Around thy features like a halo thrown,
Reminding of that noble race [known,
Beneath a lovelier heaven in .kindlier climates
Whose beauty, both the moral and the mortal,
Stood at perfection's portal
And still doth hold a rank surpassing all compare
By the divinely meek and placid air
Which witnesseth so well that all the charms
It lights and warms,
Though but the finer fashion of the clay
Deserve to be adored, since they
Are emanations from a soul allowed
Thus radiantly to glorify its dwelling
That goodness like a visible thing avowed,
May awe and win, and temper and prevail :
And by all these combined !
I call upon thy form ideal,
So deeply in my memory shrined,
To rise before my vision, like the real,
Whenever passion's tides are swelling,
)r vanity misleads, or discontent
lages with wishes, vain and impotent.
Then, while the tumults of my heart increase,
I call upon thy image — then to rise
n sweet and solemn beauty, like the moon,
Resplendent in the firmament of June,
Through the still hours of night to lonely eyes.
gaie and muse thereon, and tempests cease
4nd round me falls an atmosphere of peace.
ELIZABETH BOGART.
Miss ELIZABETH BOGART, descended from
a Huguenot family distinguished in the mer-
camile and social history of New York, and
a daughter of the late Rev. David S. Bogart,
one of the most accomplished divines of the
last generation, was born in the city of New
York. Her father was shortly afterward set
tled as a minister of the Presbyterian Church
at Southampton, on Long Island. In 1813
his connexion with that congregation was
dissolved, and he removed to North Hemp-
stead, where he was installed in the Re
formed Dutch Church, in which he had been
educated. In 1826, he removed again to
New York, where his family have since re
sided.
About the year 1825 Miss Bogart began to
write, under the signature of "Estelle," for
the New York Mirror, then recently estab
lished ; and her contributions, in prose and
verse, to this and other periodicals, would
fill several volumes. Among tbem are two
prize stories — The Effect of a Single Folly,
and The Forged Note — which evince a con
structive ability that would not, perhaps, be
inferred from her other compositions, many
of which are of a very desultory character.
Miss Bogart has ease, force, and a degree
of fervor, which might have placed her in
the front rank of our female authors ; but al
most everything she has given to the public
has an impromptu air, which shows that lit
erature has scarcely been cultivated by her
as an art, while it has constantly been re
sorted to for the utterance of feelings which
could find no other suitable expression.
AN AUTUMN VIEW, FROM MY WINDOW.
I GAZE with raptured eyes
Upon the lovely landscape, as it lies
Outstretched before my window: even now
The mist is sailing from the mountain's brow,
For it is early morning, and the sun
His course has just begun.
How beautiful the scene
Of hill on hill arising, while between
The river like a Silvery streak appears,
And rugged rocks, the monuments of years,
Resemble the old castles on the Rhine,
Which look down on the vine.
No clustering grapes, 'tis true,
Hang from these mountain-sides to meet the view;
But fairer than the vineyards is the sight
Of our luxuriant forests, which, despite
The change of nations, hold their ancient place,
Lost to the Indian race.
Untiring I survey
The prospect from my window, day by day :
Something forgotten, though just seen before,
Something of novelty or beauty more
Than yet discovered, ever charms my eyes,
And wakes a fresh surprise.
And thus, when o'er my heart
A weary thought is stealing, while apart
From friends and the gay world I sit alone,
With life's dark veil upon the future thrown,
I look from out my window, and there find
A solace for the mind.
The Indian Summer's breath
Sighs gently o'er the fallen leaflet's death,
And bids the frost-king linger on his way
Till Autumn's tints have brightened o'er decay.
What other clime can such rich painting show 1
Tell us, if any know !
RETROSPECTION.
AN EXTRACT.
I'M weary with thinking! with visions that pass
So thickly and gloomily over my brain,
In which are reflected through Memory's glass
The lost scenes of youth which return not again.
Oh ! now I look back and remember the hours
When I wished that a time of sweet leisure might
come,
When, freed from employments and studies, tlie
powers
Of thought were all loosened, in fancy to roam.
That time has arrived. Care nor business conspire
To restrain the mind's freedom, nor press on the
heart;
No stern prohibition hangs over the lyre, '
To bid all its bright inspirations depart.
But how has it tutne 1 — Oh ! by breaking the ties
Of affection and kindred, and snatching away
The beloved from around me, whose praise was the
prize
Which lured me in Poesy's pathway to stray.
137
138
ELIZABETH BOGART.
FORGETFULNESS.
WE parted ! — Friendship's dream had cast
Deep interest o'er the brief farewell,
And left upon the shadowy past
Full many a thought on which to dwell:
Such thoughts as come in early youth,
And live in fellowship with hope;
Robed in the brilliant hues of truth,
Unfitted with the world to cope.
We parted. He went o'er the sea,
And deeper solitude was mine ;
Yet there remained in memory
For feeling still a sacred shrine :
And Thought and Hope were offered up
Till their ethereal essence fled, »
And Disappointment from the cup
Its dark libations poured instead.
We parted. 'T was an idle dream
That thus we e'er should meet again ;
For who that knew man's heart, would deem
That it could long unchanged remain 1 —
He sought a foreign clime, and learned
Another language, which expressed
To strangers the rich thoughts that burned
With unquenched power within his breast.
And soon he better loved to speak
In those new accents than his own ;
His native tongue seemed cold and weak
To breathe the wakened passions' tone.
He wandered far, and lingered long,
And drank so deep of Lethe's stream,
That each new feeling grew more strong,
And all the past was like a dream.
We met — a few glad words were spoken,
A few kind glances were exchanged ;
But friendship's first romance was broken —
His had been from me estranged.
I felt it all — we met no more —
.My heart was true, but it was proud;
Life's early confidence was o'er,
And hope had set beneath a cloud.
We met no more — for neither sought
To reunite the severed chain
Of social intercourse ; for naught
Could join its parted links again.
Too much of the wide world had been
Between us for too long a time,
And he had looked on many a scene,
The beautiful and the sublime.
And he had themes on which to dwell,
And memories that were not mine,
Which formed a separating spell,
And drew a mystic boundary line.
His thoughts were wanderers — and the things
Which brought back friendship's joys to me,
To him were but the spirit's wings
Which bore him o'er the distant sea.
For he had seen the evening star
Glancing its rays o'er ocean's waves,
And marked the moonbeams from afar,
Lighting the Grecian heroes' graves ;
And he had gazed on trees and flowers
Beneath Italia's sunny skies,
And listened, in fair ladies' bowers,
To Genius' words and Beauty's sighs.
His steps had echoed through the halls
Of grandeur, long left desolate ;
And he had climbed the crumbling walls,
Or oped perforce the hingeless gate ;
And mused o'er many an ancient pile,
In ruin still magnificent,
Whose histories could the hours beguile
With dreams, before to Fancy lent.
Such recollections come to him,
With moon, and stars, and summer flowers
To me they bring the shadows dim
Of earlier and of happier hours.
I would those shadows darker fell —
For life, with its best powers to bless,
Has but few memories loved as well
Or welcome as forgetfulness !
HE CAME TOO LATE.
HE came too late ! — Neglect had tried
Her constancy too long ;
Her love had yielded to her pride,
And the deep sense of wrong.
She scorned the offering of a heart
Which lingered on its way,
Till it could no delight impart,
Nor spread one cheering ray.
He came too late ! — At once he felt
That all his power was o'er :
Indifference in her calm smile dwelt — .
She thought of him no more.
Anger and grief had passed away,
Her heart and thoughts were free ;
She met him, and her words were gay —
No spell had Memory.
He came too late ! — The subtle chords
Of love were all unbound.
Not by offence of spoken words,
But by the slights that wound.
She knew that life held nothing now
That could the past repay,
Yet she disdained his tardy vow,
And coldly turned away.
He came too late ! — Her countless dreams
Of hope had long since flown ;
No charms dwelt in his chosen themes,
Nor in his whispered tone.
And when, with word and smile, he tried
Affection still to prove,
She nerved her heart with woman's pride,
And spurned his fickle love.
MARY E. BROOKS.
Miss MARY E. AIKEN, a native of New
York, was for several years a contributor to
the Mirror and other periodicals, under the
signature of "Norna," her sister, during the
same period, writing under the pseudonyme
of "Hinda." In 1828 she was married to
Mr. James G. Brooks, a gentleman of fine
abilities, who was well known as the author
of many graceful pieces, in prose and verse,
signed " Florio." In the following year ap
peared a volume entitled The Rivals of Este
and other Poems, by James G. and Mary E
Brooks. The leading composition, from
which* the collection had its name, is by
Mrs. Brooks. It is a stcry of passion, and the
principal characters are of the ducal house
of Ferrara. Her Hebrew Melodies, and other
short poems, in the same volume, are written
with more care, and have much more merit.
Mr. Brooks was at this time connected
with one of the New York journals ; but in
1830 he removed to Winchester, in Virginia,
where he was for several years editor of a
political and literary gazette. In 1838 he
returned to New York, and established him
self in Albany, where he remained until his
death, in February, 1841, from which time
Mrs. Brooks has resided in New York.
THE CLOSE OF THE YEAR.
" The everlasting to be which halli been
Hath taught u* naught or little."
FROM the deep and stirring tone,
Ever on the midnight breaking,
Came a whisper thrill and lone
O'er my silent vigil waking :
" Come to me ! the dreamy hour
Fades before the spoiler's power !
Come ! the passing tide is strong,
A= it bears thy life along ;
Soon another seal for thee
Stamps the stern Futurity.
Bow thee — bend thee to the light
Stealing on thy spirit sight,
From the bygone's faded bloom,
From the shadow and the gloom,
From each strange and changeful scene
Which amid thy path has been ;
And oh, let it wake for thee,
Beacon of the days to be !"
Soft before my sight was spreading
Many a sweet and sunny flower;
Pleasure bright, her promise shedding,
Gilded o'er each fairy bower :
Oh, it was a laughing glee,
Hanging o'er Futurity ;
Blisses mid young beauties blooming —
Hopes, no sullen griefs entombing —
Loves that vowed to link for ever,
Cold or blighted, never — never;
Not a shadow on the dome
Fancy reared for days to come —
Not a dream of sleeping ill
There her rushing tide to chill ;
Gayly lay each glittering morrow :
And I turned me half in sorrow,
As that phantom beckoned back,
To retrace Life's fading track.
Sinking in the broad dim ocean,
Shadows blending o'er its bier,
Slow from being's wild commotion,
Saw I pass another year.
There was but a misty cloud
Bending o'er a silent shroud ;
Hope, fame, rapture — loved and gay —
Tell, oh tell me, where were they 1
Idols once in sunlight glancing,
Ay, that claimed each starting sigh,
With the green-leafed promise dancing
Round the heart so merrily —
Where was now the waking blossom
Should be wreathing round the bosom ]
Only lay a mist far spreading,
Dim and dimmer twilight shedding,
Like to fever's fitful gleam,
Like to sleeper's troubled dream ;
In the cold and perished Past
Lay the mighty strife at last.
Oft that dim and visioned treading,
Where the frail and fair decay,
Comes upon my bosom, shedding
Light through many a rising day.
Phantoms now in beauty ranging,
Dreaming ne'er of chill or changing,
Bright and gay and flashing all,
How their voiceless shadows fall !
Go — the weeper's heart is weary ;
Go — the widow's wail is dreary :
Thousand-toned the agony
On each night-breeze sweeping by :
Go — and for each little flower
Wreathed about the blighted bower,
Bright, when suns and stars have set,
Will a flow'ret blossom yet.
140
MARY E. BROOKS.
A PLEDGE TO THE DYING YEAR.
FILL to the brim ! one pledge to the past,
As it sinks on its shadowy bier ;
Fill to the brim ! 'tis the saddest and last
We pour to the grave of the year :
Wake, the light phantoms of beauty that won us
To linger awhile in those bowers;
And flash the bright daybeams of promise upon us,
That gilded life's earlier hours.
Here's to the love — though it flitted away,
WTe can never, no, never forget !
Through the gathering darkness of many a day,
One pledge will we pour to it yet.
Oh, frail as the vision, that witching and tender,
And bright on the wanderer broke,
\\ hen Irem's own beauty in shadowless splendor,
Along the wild desert awoke.*
Fill to the brim ! one pledge to the glow
Of the heart in its purity warm !
Ere sorrow had sullied the fountain below,
Or darkness enveloped the form :
Fill to that life-tide ! oh, warm was its rushing
Through Adens of arrowy light,
And yet like the wave in the wilderness gushing,
'Twill g adden the wine cup to-night.
Fill to the past ! from its dim distant sphere
Wild voices in melody come ;
The strains of the bygone, deep echoing here,
We pledge to their shadowy tomb ;
And like the bright orb, that in sinking flings back
One gleam o'er the cloud-covered dome,
May the dreams of the past, on futurity track
The hope of a holier home !
"WEEP NOT FOR THE DEAD."
OH, weep not for the dead !
Rather, oh rather give the tear
To those who darkly linger here,
When all besides are fled :
Weep for the spirit withering
In its cold, cheerless sorrowing ;
Weep for the young and lovely one
That ruin darkly revels on,
But never be a tear-drop shed
For them, the pure enfranchised dead.
Oh, weep not for the dead !
No more for them the blighting chill,
The thousand shades of earthly ill,
The thousand thorns we tread ;
Weep for the life-charm early flown,
The spirit broken, bleeding, lone ;
Weep for the death pangs of the heart,
Ere being from the bosom part ;
But never be a tear-urop given
To those that rest in yon blue heaven.
* Irem, one of the gardens described by Mohammed—
planted, as the commentators of the Koran say by a kin"
named Shedad, once seen by an Arabian, who wandered
Very far into the desert in search of a lost camel : a gar-
DREAM OF LIFE.
I BEAUT) the music of the wave,
As it rippled to the shore,
And saw the willow branches lave,
As light winds swept them o'er —
The music of the golden bow
That did the torrent span ;
But I heard a sweeter music flow
From the youthful heart of man.
The wave rushed on — the hues of heaven
Fainter and fainter grew,
And deeper melodies were given
As swift the changes flew :
Then came a shadow on my sigh ;
The golden bow was dim —
And he that laughed beneath its light,
What was the change to him 1
I saw him not : only a throng
Like the swell of troubled ocean,
Rising, sinking, swept along
In the tempest's wild commotion :
Sleeping, dreaming, waking then,
Cnains to link or sever —
Turning to the dream again,
Fain to clasp it ever.
There was a rush upon my brain,
A darkness on mine eye ;
And when I turned to gaze again,
The mingled forms were nigh :
In shadowy mass a mighty hall
Rose on the fitful scene ;
Flowers, music, gems, were flung o'er all,
Not such as once had been.
Then in its mist, far, far away,
A phantom seemed to be ;
The something of a bvgone day —
But oh, how changed was he !
He rose beside the festal board,
Wrhere sat the merry throng ;
And as the purple juice he poured,
Thus woke his wassail song :
SONG.
COME ! while with wine the goblets flow,
For wine they say has power to bless ;
And flowers, too — not roses, no !
Bring poppies, bring forgetfulness !
A lethc for departed bliss,
And each too well remembered scene :
Earth has no sweeter draught than this,
Which drowns the thought of what has been '
Here 's to the heart's cold iciness,
Which can not smile, but will not sigh :
If wine can bring a chill like this,
Come, fill for me the goblet high.
Come — and the cold, the false, the dead,
Shall never cross our revelry ;
We'll kiss the wine cup sparkling red,
And snap the chain of memory.
den no less celebrated (says Sir W. Jones) by the Asiatic
poets, than that of the He=perides by the Greeks.
M. ST. LEON LOUD.
MARGUERITE ST. LEON BARSTOW was born j
in the rural town of Wysox, among the wind
ings of the Susquehannah, in Bradford coun
ty, Pennsylvania. In 1824 she was married
to Mr. Loud, of Philadelphia ; and, except
during a short period passed in the South,
has since resided in that city. Her poems
have for the most part appeared in the Uni
ted States Gazette and in the Philadelphia
monthly magazines. Mr. Edgar A. Poe, in
his Autography, says of Mrs. Loud, that she
"has imagination of no common order, and,
unlike many of her sex, is not
« Content to dwell in decencies forever.'
While she can, upon occasion, compose the
ordinary singsong with all the decorous pro
prieties which are in fashion, she yet ventures
very frequently into a more ethereal region."
A DREAM OF THE LONELY ISLE.
THKRE is an isle in the far South sea,
Sunny and bright as an isle can be ;
Sweet is the sound of the ocean wave,
As its sparkling waters the green shores lave ;
And from the shell that upon the strand
Lies half buried in golden sand —
A thrilling tone through the still air rings,
Like music trembling on fairy strings.
Flowers like those which the Peris find
In the bowers of their paradise, and bind
In the flowing tresses, are blooming there,
And gay birds glance through the scented air.
Gems and pearls are strewed on the earth
Untouched — there are known to know their worih ;
And that fair island Death comes not nigh :
Why should he come 1 — there are none to die.
My heart had grown, like the misanthrope's,
Cold and dead to ail human hopes;
Fame and fortune alike had proved
Baseless dreams, and the friends I loved
Vanished away, like the flowers that fade
In the deadly blight of the Upas' shade.
I longed upon that green isle to be,
Far away o'er the sounding sea,
Where no human voice, with its words of pain,
Could ever fall on rny ear again.
Life seemed a desert waste to me,
And I sought in slumber from care to flee.
Away, away, o'er the waters blue,
Light as a sea-bird the vessel flew.
Deep ocean-furrows her timbers plough,
As the waves are parted before her prow ;
And the foaming billows close o'er her path,
Hissing and roaring, as if in wrath.
But swiftly onward, through foam and spray,
.To the lonely island she steers her way :
The heavens above wore their brightest smile,
As the bark was moored by that fairy isle ;
The sails were furled, the voyage was o'er ;
I should buffet the waves of the world no more \
I looked to the ocean — the bark was gone,
And I stood on that beautiful isle alone.
My wish was granted, and I was blest;
My spirit revelled in perfect rest —
A Dead sea calm — even Thought reposed
Like a weary dove with its pinions closed.
Beauty was round me : bright roses hung
Their blushing wreaths o'er my head, and flung
Fragance abroad on the gale — to me
Sweeter than odors of Araby ;
Wealth was mine, for the yellow gold
Lay before me in heaps untold.
Death to that island knew not the way,
But life was mine'for ever and aye,
Till Love again made my heart its throne,
And I ceased to dwell on the isle alone.
Long did my footsteps delighted range
My peaceful home, but there came a change :
My heart grew sad, and I looked with pain
On all I had bartered life's ties to gain.
A chilling weight on my spirits fell,
As the low, soft wail of the ocean shell —
Or the bee's faint hum in the flowery wood,
Was all that broke on mv solitude.
Oh ! then I felt, in my loneliness,
That earth had no power the heart to bless,
Unwarmed by affection's holy ray ;
And hope was withered, as day by day
I watched for the bark, but in vain — in vain ;
She never sought that green isle again !
I stretched my arms o'er the heaving sea,
And prayed aloud, in my agony,
That Love's pure spirit might with me dwell.
Then rose the waves with a murmuring swell,
Higher and higher, till naught was seen ,
Where slept in beauty that islet green.
The waters passed o'er me — the spell was bioke;
From the dream of the lonely isle I woke,
With a heart redeemed from its selfish stain,
To mingle in scenes of the world again
With cheerful spirit — and rather share
The pains and sorrows which mortals bear,
Than dwell where no shade on my path is tin own,
Mid fadeless flowers and bright gems alone.
141
112
M. ST. LEON LOUD.
THE DESERTED HOMESTEAD.
THERE is a lonely homestead
In a green and quiet vale,
"With its tall trees sighing mournfully
To every passing gale ;
There are many mansions round it,
In the sunlight gleaming fair ;
But moss-grown is that ancient roof,
Its walls are gray and hare.
Where once glad voices sounded
Of children in their mirth,
No whisper breaks the solitude
By that deserted hearth.
The swallow from her dwelling
In the low eaves hath flown ;
And all night long, the whip-poor-will
Sings by the threshold stone.
No hand above the window
Ties up the trailing -vines;
And through the broken casement-panes
The moon at midnight shines.
And many a solemn shadow
Seems starting from the gloom;
Like forms of long-departed ones
Peopling that dim o'd room.
No furrow for the harvest
Is drawn upon the ] lain,
And in the pastures green and fair
No herds or flocks remain.
Why is that beauteous homestead
Thus standing bare and lone,
While all the worshipped household gods
In dust lie overthrown.
And where are they whose voices
Rang out o'er hill and dale ]
Gone — and their mournful history
Is but an oft-told tale.
There smiles no lovelier valley
Beneath the summer sun,
Yet they who dwelt together there,
Departed one by one.
Some to the quiet churchyard,
And some beyond the sea ;
To meet no more, as once they met,
Beneath that old roof-tree.
Like forest-birds forsaking
Their sheltering native nest,
The young to life's wild scenes went forth,
The agrd to their rest.
Fame and ambition lured them
From that green vale to roam,
But as their dazzling dreams depart,
Regretful memories come
Of the valley and the homestead —
Of their childhood pure and free —
Till each world-weary spirit pines
That spot once more to see.
Oh ! blest are they who linger
Mid old familiar things,
Where every object o'er the heart
A hallowed influence flings.
Though won are wealth and honors •
Though reached fame's lofty dome —
There are no joys like those which dwell
Within our childhood's home.
PRAYER FOR AN ABSENT HUSBAND.
FATHER in heaven !
Behold, he whom I love is daily treading
The path of life in heaviness of soul.
With the thick darkness now around him spreading
He long hath striven —
Oh, thou most kind ! break not the golden bowl.
Father in heaven !
Thou who so oft hast healed the broken-hearted
And raised the weary spirit bowed with care,
Let him not say his joy hath all departed,
Lest he be driven
Down to the deep abyss of dark despair.
Father in heaven !
Oh, grant to his most cherished hopes a blessing —
Let peace and rest descend upon his head,
That his torn heart, thy holy love possessing,
May not be riven —
Let guardian angels watch his lonely bed.
Father in heaven !
Oh, may his heart be stayed or, thee ! each feeling
Still lifted up in gratitude and love ;
And may that faith the joys of heaven revealing
To him be given,
Till he shall praise thy name in realms above.
REST IN THE GRAVE.
OH, peaceful grave ! how blest
Are they who in thy quiet chambers rest,
After the feverish strife —
The wild, dark, turbulent career of life !
There shall the throbbing brain,
The heart with its wild hopes and longings vain,
Find undisturbed repose —
No more to struggle with its weight of woes.
No passionate desires
For some bright goal to which the soul aspires —
Foreverunattained — consume like quenchless firea
Oh ! for a dreamless sleep,
A slumber calm and deep,
A long and silent midnight in the tomb,
Where no dim visions of the past may come ;
No haunting memories — no tears,
Nor voices which the startled spirit hears,
Whispering mysteriously of ill in coming years.
Peace — peace unbroken dwells,
Oh grave ! in thy lone cells.
And yet not lone, for they
Who've passed from earth away,
People thy realms — the beautiful, the young,
The kindred who around my pathway flung
All that earth had of brightness — and the tomb
Is robbed of all its gloom.
There would I rest, O Grave !
Till thy unstormy wave
Hath overswept the whole of life's bleak shore;
In thy deep stream of calm forgetfulness
My soul would sink — no more
To brave within a frail, unanchored bark,
Life's tossing billows and its tempests dark,
EMMA C. EMBURY.
(Born 1806-Died 1863).
THIS graceful and popular authoress — the
Milford of our country — to whom we are in
so large a degree indebted for redeeming the
" ladies' magazines," so called, from the re
proach of frivolity and sickly sentiment, is
a daughter of Dr. James R. Manley, for many
years one of the most eminent physicians of
New York, from whom she inherits all the
peculiar pride and prejudice that make up
the genuine Knickerbocker. She was mar
ried, it appears from the New York Mirror
of the following Saturday, on the tenth of
May, 1828, to Mr. Daniel Embury, now of
Brooklyn, a gentleman of liberal fortune, who
is well known for his taste and scholarly ac
quirements.
Mrs. Embury's native interest in literature
was manifested by an early appreciation of
the works of genius, and her poetical talents
were soon recognised and admired. Under
the signature of " lanthe," she gave to the
public numerous effusions, which were dis
tinguished for vigor of language and genuine
depth of feeling. A volume of these youthful
but most promising compositions was select
ed and published, under the title of Guido and
other Poems. Since her marriage, she has
given to the public more prose than verse,
but the former is characterized by the same
romantic spirit which is the essential beauty
of poetry. Many of her tales are founded
upon a just observation of life, although not
a few are equally remarkable for attractive
invention. In point of style, they often pos
sess the merit of graceful and pointed dic
tion, and the lessons they inculcate are inva
riably of a pure moral tendency. Constance
Latimer, or The Blind Girl, is perhaps better
known than any other of her single produc
tions ; and this, as well as her Pictures of
Early Life, has passed through a large num
ber of editions. In 1845 she published, in a
beautiful quarto volume, with pictorial illus
trations, Nature's Gems, or American Wild
Flowers, a work which contains some of
the finest specimens of her writings, in both
prose and verse. In 1846 she gave to the
public a collection of graceful poems, under
the title of Love's Token Flowers ; and, in
1848, The Waldorf Family, or Grandfather's
Legends, a little volume in which she has
happily adapted the romantic and poetical
legendary of Brittany to the tastes of our own
country and the present age ; and a work
entitled Glimpses of Home Life, in which
many of the beautiful fictions she had writ
ten for the magazines, having a unity and
completeness of design, are reproduced, to
run anew the career of popularity through
which they passed on their first and separate
publication. The tales and sketches by Mrs.
Embury are very numerous, probably not less
than one hundred and fifty ; and several such
delightful series, evincing throughout the
same true cultivation and refinement of taste
and feeling, might be made from them.
TWO PORTRAITS FROM LIFE.
i.
On, what a timid watch young Love was keeping
When thou wert fashioned in such gentle guise !
How was thy nature nursed with secret sighs !
What bitter tears thy mother's heart were steeping !
Within the crystal depths of thy blue eyes
A world of troubled tenderness lies sleeping,
And on thy full and glowing lip there lies
A shadow that portends thee future weeping.
Tender and self-distrustful — doubting still
Thyself, but trusting all the world beside,
Tremblingly sensitive to coming ill,
Blending with woman's softness manhood's pride,
How wilt thou all life's future conflicts bear,
And fearless suffer all that man must do and dare 1
Pnoun,self-sustained and fearless! dreading naught
Save falsehood — loving everything but sin —
How glorious is the light that from within
Illumes thy boyish face with lofty thought !
A child thou art — but thy deep eyes are fraught
With that mysterious light by genius shed,
And in thine aspect is a glory caught
From the high dreams that cluster round thy head.
I know not what thy future lot may be,
But, when men gather to a new crusade
Against earth e falsehood, wrong, and tyranny, ^
Thou wilt be there with all thy strength dif«
played —
Thy voice clear-ringing mid the conflict's roar,
And on thy banner, writ in stars, " Excelsior !"
143
141
EMMA C. EMBURY.
THE DUKE OF RE1CHSTADT.
HKITI of that name
W hich shook with sudden terror the far earth —
Child of strange destinies e'en from thy birth,
When kings and princes round thy cradle came,
And »avr tiu-ir crowns, as playthings, to thy hand —
Thine heritage the spoils of many a land !
How were the schemes
Of human foresight haftled in thy fate,
Thou victim of a parent's lofty state !
What glorious visions filled thy father's dreams,
When first he gazed upon thy infant face,
And deemed himself the Rodolph of his race !
Scarce had thine eyes
Beheld the light of day, when thou wert bound
With power's vain symbols, and thy young brow
crowned
With Rome's imperial diadem — the prize
From priestly princes by thy proud sire won,
To deck the pillow of his cradled son.
Yet where is now
The sword that flashed as with a meteor light,
And led on half the world to stirring fight,
Bidding whole seas of blood and carnage flow ]
Alas ! when foiled on his last battle-plain,
Its shattered fragments forged thy father's chain.
Far worse thy fate
Than that which doomed him to the barren rock ;
Through half the universe was felt the shock,
When down he toppled from his high estate ;
And the proud thought of still acknowledged power
Could cheer him e'en in that disastrous hour.
But thou, poor boy !
Hadst no such dreams to cheat the lagging hours;
Thy chains still galled, though wreathed with fairest
Thou hadst no images of bygone joy, [flowers;
No visions of anticipated fame,
To bear thee through a life of sloth and shame.
And where was she,
W7hose proudest title was Napoleon's wife ?
She who first gave, and should have watched thy
Treb ing a mother's tenderness for thee, [life,
Despoiled heir of empire ] On her breast
Did thy young heart repose in its unrest \
No ! round her heart
Children of humbler, happier lineage twined :
Thou couldst but bring dark memories to mind
Of pageants where she bore a heartless part ;
She who shared not her monarch-husband's doom
Cared little for her first-born's living tomb.
Thou art at rest :
Child of Ambition's martyr ! life had been
To thee no blessing, but a dreary scene
Of doubt, and dread, and suffering at the best ;
For thou wert one whose path, in these dark times,
Would lead to sorrows — it may be to crimes !
Thou art at rest :
The idle sword hath worn its sheath away ;
The spirit has consumed its bonds of clay;
And they, who with vain tyranny comprest
Thy soul's high yearnings, now forget their fear,
And fling ambition's purple o'er thy bier !
SYMPATHY.
LIKE the sweet melody which faintly lingers
Upon the windharp's strings at close of day,
When gently touched by evening's dewy fingers
It breathes a low and melancholy lay :
So the calm voice of sympathy meseemeth ;
And while its magic spell is round me cast,
My spirit in its cloistered silence dreameth,
And vaguely blends the future with the past.
But vain such dreams while pain my bosom thrilleth.
And mournful memories around me move ;
E'en friendship's alchemy no balm distilleth,
To soothe th' immedicable wound of love.
Alas, alas ! passion too soon exhaieth
The dewy freshness of the heart's young flowers;
We water them with tears, but naught availeth —
They wither on through all life's later hours.
AUTUMN EVENING.
" And Isaac went out hi the field to meditate at eventide."
Go forth at morning's birth,
When the glad sun, exulting in his might.
Comes from the dusky-curtained tents of night,
Shedding his gifts of beauty o'er the earth ;
When sounds of busy life are on the air,
And man awakes to labor and to care,
Then hie thee forth : go out amid thy kind,
Thy daily tasks to do, thy harvest-sheaves to bind.
Go forth at noontide hour,
Beneath the heat and burden of the day
Pursue the labors of thine onward way,
Nor murmur if thou miss life's morning flower;
Where'er the footsteps of mankind are found
Thou may'st discern some spot of hallowed ground,
Where duty blossoms even as the rose, [enclose.
Though sharp and stinging thorns the beauteousbud
Go forth at eventide,
When sounds of toil no more the soft air fill,
When e'en the hum of insect life is still,
And the bird's song on evening's breeze has died ;
Go forth, as did the patriarch of old, [told,
And commune with thy heart's deep thoughts un-
Fathom thy spirit's hidden depths, and learn
The mysteries of life, the fires that inly burn.
Go forth at eventide,
The eventide of summer, when the trees
Yield their frail honors to the passing breeze,
And woodland paths with autumn tints are dyed ;
When the mild sun his paling lustre shrouds
In gorgeous draperies of golden clouds,
Then wander forth, mid beauty and decay,
To meditate alone — alone to watch and pray.
Go forth at eventide,
Commune with thine own bosom, and be still —
Check the wild impulses of wayward will,
And learn the nothingness of human pride:
Morn is the time to act, noon to endure ;
But, oh, if thou wouldst keep thy spirit pure,
Turn from the beaten path by worldlings trod,
Go forth at eventide, ii: heart to walk with God
EMMA C. EMBURY.
145
PEACE.
0 i. sock l-er not in marl) o balls of pride,
Where pushing fountains fliiu their silver tide,
Their wea th of freshness toward the summer sky ;
The ec'ioos of a palace are too loud —
They hut give hack the footsteps of the crowd
That throng ahout some idol throned on high,
Whose er mined robe and pomp of rich array
But serve tu hide the fa'se one's feet of clay.
Nor seek her form in poverty's low va'e, [pale,
Where, touched by want, the bright cheek waxes
And the heart faints, with sordid cares opprest,
Where pining discontent has left its trace
Deep and abiding in each haggard face.
Not there, not there Peace builds her halcyon nest :
Wild revel scares her from wealth's towering dome,
And misery frights her from the poor man's home.
Nor dwells she in the cloister, where the sage
Ponders the mystery of some time-stained page,
Delving, with feeble hand, the classic mine ;
Oh, who can teli the restless hope of fame,
The bitter yearnings for a deathless name,
That round the student's heart like serpents twine!
Ambition's fever burns within his breast,
Can Peace, sweet Peace, abide with such a guest ?
Search not within the city's crowded mart,
Where the low-whispered music of the heart
Is all unheard amid the clang of go'd ;
Oh, never yet did Peace her chaplet twine
To lay upon base mammon's sordid shrine, [sold ;
Where earth's most precious things are bought and
Thrown on that pile, the pearl of price would be
Despised, because unfit for merchantry.
Go ! hie thee to God's altar— kneeling there,
List to the ming'ed voice of fervent prayer
That swells around thee in the sacred fane ;
Or catch the solemn organ's pealing note,
When grateful praises on the still air float,
And the freed soul forgets earth's heavy chain :
There learn that Peace, sweet Peace, is ever found
In her eternal home, on holy ground.
THE EOLIAN HARP.
HARP of the winds ! how vainly art thou swelling
Thv diapason on the heedless blast ;
How idly, too, thy gentler chords are telling
A tale of sorrow as the breeze sweeps past :
Why dost thou waste in loneliness the strain
Which were not heard by human ears in vain ?
And the Harp answered,Though the winds are bear-
My soul of sweetness on their viewless wings, [ing
Yet one faint tone may reach some sou! despairing,
And rouse its energies to happier things :
Oh, not in vain my song, if it but gives
One moment's joy to anything that lives.
Oh heart of mine ! canst thou not, here discerning
An emblem of thyself, some solace find ] [irrg.
Thou ah earth may never quench thy life-long yearn-
Yet give thyself like music to the wind :
Thy wandering thought may teach thy love and
And waken sympathy when thou art dust, [trust.
JO
UNREST.
HKATIT, weary Heart! what means thy wild Unrest 1
Hast thou not tasted of earth's every p'easurel
With all that morta's seek thy lot is blest ;
Yet dost thou ever chant in mournful measure —
" Something beyond !"
Heart, weary Heart ! canst thou not find repose
In the sweet calm of friendship's pure devotion ?
Amid the peace whic.h sympathy bestows,
Still dost thou murmur with repressed emotion,
" Something beyond !"
Heart, weary Heart ! too idly hast thou poured
Thy music and thy perfume on the blast ;
Now, beggared in affection's treasured hoard,
Thy cry is still — thy saddest and thy last —
" Something beyond !"
Heart, weary Heart ! oh, cease thy wild unrest —
Earth can not satisfy thy bitter yearning :
Then onward, upward speed thy lonely quest,
And hope to find, where Heaven's pure stars are
burning, " Something beyond !"
THE OLD MAN'S LAMENT.
0;i, for one draught of those sweet waters now
That shed such freshness o'er my early life !
Oh that I could but bathe my fevered brow
To wash away the dust of worldly strife,
And be a simple-hearted child once more,
As if I ne'er had known this world's pernicious lore !
My heart is weary, and my spirit pants
Beneath the heat and burden of the day ;
Would that I could regain those shady haunts
Where once, with Hope, I dreamed the hours
Giving my thoughts to tales of old romance, [away,
And yielding up my soul to youth's delicious trance !
Vain are such wishes : I no more may tread
With lingering step and slow the green hili-side ,
Before me now life's shortening path is spread,
And I must onward, whatsoe'er betide :
The pleasant nooks of youth are passed for aye,
And sober scenes now meet the traveller on his way.
Alas ! the dust which clogs my weary feet
Glitters with fragments of each ruined shrine,
Where once my spirit worshipped, when, with sweet
And passionless devotion, it could twine
Its strong affections round earth's earthliest things,
Yet bear away no stain upon its snowy wings.
What though some flowers have 'scaped the tem
pest's wrath ]
Daily they droop by nature's swift decay :
What though the setting sun. still lights my path!
Morn's dewy freshness long has passed away.
Oh, give me back life's newly-budded flowers- -
Let me once more inhale the breath of morning's
hours !
My youth, my youth ! oh, give me back my youth !
Not the unfurrowed brow and blooming cheek,
But childhood's sunny thoughts, its perfect truth,
And youth's unworldly feelings — these I seek
Ah, who could e'er be sinless and yet sage 1 [page .
Would that I might forget Time's dark and blotted
146
EMMA C. EMBURY.
THE AMERICAN RIVER.
A KKMK.MHKANCK.
IT rusheth on with fearful might,
That river of the west,
Through forests dense, where seldom light
Of sunbeam gilds its breast:
Anon it dashes wildly past
The widespread prairie ,one and vast,
Without a shadow on its tide,
Save the long grass that skirts its side ;
Again its angry currents sweep
Beneath some tall and rocky steep,
Which frowns above the darkened stream,
Till doubly deep its waters seem.
No rugged cliff may check its way,
No gent.e mead invite its stay —
Still with resistless, maddened force,
Following its wild and devious course,
The river rusheth on.
It rusheth on — the rocks are stirred,
And echoing far and wide,
Through the dim forest aisles, is heard
The thunder of its tide ;
No other sound strikes on the ear,
Save when, beside its waters clear,
Crashing o'er branches dry and sear,
Comes bounding forth the antlered deer ;
Or when, perchance, the woods give back
The arrow whizzing on its track,
Or deadlier rifle's vengeful crack:
No hum of busy life is near,
And still uncurbed in its career
The river rusheth on.
It rusheth on — no firebark leaves
Its dark and smoking trail
O'er the pure wave, which only heaves
The bateau light and frail ;
Long, long ago the rude canoe
Across its sparkling waters flew ;
Long, long ago the Indian brave
In the clear stream his brow might lave :
But seldom has the white man stood
Within that trackless solitude,
Where onward, onward dashing still,
With all the force of untamed will,
The river rusheth on.
It rusheth on — no changes mark
How many years have sped
Since to its banks, through forests dark,
Some chance the hunter led ;
Though many a season has passed o'er
The giant tree* that gird its shore —
Though the soft limestone mass, imprest
By naked footstep on its breast,
Now hardened into rock appears,
B\ work of indurating years,
Yet 'tis by grander strength alone
That Nature's age is ever known.
While crumbling turrets tell the tale
Hf man's vain pomp and projects frail,
Time, in the wilderness displays
Th' ennobling power of length of days,
And in the forest's pathless bound,
Type of Etenrty, is found —
The river rushing on.
THE ENGLISH RIVER.
A FANTASY.
IT floweth on with pleasant sound —
A vague and dreamlike measure,
And singeth to the flowers around
A song of quiet pleasure ;
No rugged cliff obstructs the way
Where the glad waters leap and play,
Or, if a tiny rock look down
In the calm stream with mimic frown,
The waves a sweeter music make,
As at its base they flash and break :
It speedeth on, like joy's bright hours,
Traced but by verdure and by flowers ;
And whether sunbeams on it rest,
Or storm-clouds hover o'er its breast,
Still in that green and shady glen,
Beside the busy haunts of men,
The river singeth on.
It floweth on, past tree and flower,
Until the stream is laving
The ruins of some ancient tower,
With ivy banners waving :
Methinks the river's pleasant chime
Now tells a tale of olden time,
W7hen mail-clad knights were often seen
Upon its banks of living green,
And gentle dames of lineage high
Lingered to hear Love's thrilling sigh;
Haply some squire, whose humble name
Was yet unheralded by fame,
Here wove ambition's earliest dreams :
While then, as now, 'neath sunset gleams,
The river singeth on.
It floweth on — that gentle stream —
And seems to tell the story
Of old-world heroes, and their dream
Of fame and martial glory ;
The war-cry on its banks has pealed,
Blent with the clang of lance and shield
Waked to new life by war's alarms,
Bold knights, and squires, and men-at-arms,
Have sallied forth in proud array,
Wit'.i hearts impatient for the fray :
Though nature's voice is little heard,
When pulses are thus madly stirred,
Yet, while in brightness it gives back
The glittering sheen that marks their uack.
The river singeth on.
Yet, as above the sunniest fate
Hangs the dark cloud of sorrow,
So sadder scenes the fancy wait,
Since dreams from truth we borrow :
A well-worn path, now grass-o'ergrown
And hid by many a fallen stone,
To yonder roofless chapel led
Where sleep the castle's honored dead ;
Full often that pure stream has glassed
The funeral train, as slow it passed ;
Hark ! as the barefoot monks repeat
The " Requiescat," wild and sweet,
The river singeth ou.
The vision fades, the phantoms flee.
And naught of all remaineth ;
The river runneth fast and free,
EMMA C. EMBURY.
147
The wind through ruins plaineth :
The feudal lord and belted knight,
And spurless squire and lady bright,
Long since have shared the common lot —
All, save their haughty name, forgot.
The ivy wreathes the ruined shrine,
Flaunting beneath the glad sunshine;
The fallen fortress, ruined wall,
And crumbling battlement, are all
That still are left to tell the tale
Of those who ruled that fairy vale :
But Nature still upholds her sway,
And flowers and music mark the way
The river singeth on.
BALLAD.
THE maiden sat at her busy wheel,
Her heart was light and free,
And ever in cheerful song broke forth
Her bosom's harmless glee :
Her song was in mockery of Love,
And oft I heard her say,
" The gathered rose and the stolen heart
Can charm but for a day."
I looked on the maiden's rosy cheek,
And her lip so full and bright,
And I sighed to think that the traitor Love
Should conquer a heart so light:
But she thought not of future days of wo,
While she carolled in tones so gay —
" The gathered rose and the stolen heart
Can charm but for a day."
A year passed on, and again I stood
By the humble cottage door ;
The maid sat at her busy wheel,
But her look was blithe no more ;
The big tear stood in her downcast eye,
And with sighs I heard her say,
" The gathered rose and the stolen heart
Can charm but for a day."
Oh, well I knew what had dimmed her eye,
And made her cheek so pale :
The maid had forgotten her early song,
While she listened to Love's soft tale ;
She had tasted the sweets of his poisoned cup,
It had wasted her life away —
And the stolen heart, like the gathered rose,
Had charmed but for a day.
CHEERFULNESS.
A GEXTLE heritage is mine,
A life of quiet p'easure :
My heaviest cares are but to twine
Fresh votive garlands for the shrine
Where 'bides my bosom's treasure ;
I am not merry, nor yet sad,
My thoughts are more serene than glad.
I have outlived youth's feverish mirth,
And all its causeless sorrow :
My joys are now of nobler birth,
My sorrows too have holier birth
And heavenly solace Dorrow ;
So, from my green and shady nook,
Back on my by-past life I look.
The past has memories sad and sweet,
Memories still fondly cherished,
Of love that blossomed at my feet,
Whose odors still my senses greet,
E'en though the flowers have perished :
Visions of pleasures passed away
That charmed me in life's earlier day.
The future, Isis-like, sits veiled,
And none her mystery learneth ;
Yet why should the bright cheek be paled,
For sorrows that may be bewailed
W'hen time our hopes inure th ]
Come when it will grief comes too soon—
Why dread the night at highest noon ]
I wou'd not pierce the mist that hides
Life's coming joy or sorrow ;
If sweet content with me abides
While onward still the present glides,
I think not of the morrow ;
It may bring griefs — enough for me
The quiet joy I feel and see.
THE WIDOW'S WOOER.
HE woos me with those honeyed words
That women love to hear,
Those gentle flatteries that fall
So sweet on every ear :
He tells me that my face is fair,
Too fair for grief to shade ;
My cheek, he says, was never meant
In sorrow's gloom to fade.
He stands beside me when I sing
The songs of other days,
And whispers, in love's thrilling tonta,
The words of heartfelt praise ;
And often in my eyes he looks,
Some answering love to see ;
In vain — he there can only read
The faith of memory.
He little knows what thoughts awake
With every gentle word ;
How, by his looks and tones, the foun's
Of tenderness are stirred :
The visions of my youth return.
Joys far too bright to last,
And while he speaks of future bliss,
I think but of the past.
Like lamps in eastern sepulchres.
Amid my heart's deep gloom.
Affection sheds its holiest light
Upon my husband's tomb .
And is those lamps, if brought once moi«
To upper air grow dim,
So my soul's love is cold and dead.
Unless it glow for him.
148
EMMA C. EMBURY.
MADAME DE STAEL.
THKTIE was no beauty on thy brow,
No softness in thine eye ;
Thy cheek wore not the rose's glow,
Thy lip the ruby's dye ;
The charms that make a woman's pride
Had never been thine own —
For Heaven to thee those gifts denied
In which eatth's bright ones shone.
But brighter, holier spells were thine,
For mental wealth was given,
Till thou wert as a sacred shrine
Where men might worship Heaven.
Yes, woman as thou wert, thy word
Could make the tyrant start,
And thy tongue's witchery has stirred
Ambition's iron heart.
The charm of eloquence — the skill
To wake each secret string,
And from the bosom's chords, at will,
Life's mournful music bring ;
The o'ermastering strength of mind, which sways
The haughty and the free,
Whose might earth's mightiest one obeys —
These — these were given to thee.
Thou hadst a prophet's eye to pierce
The depths of man's dark soul,
For thou couldst tell of passions fierce
O'er which its wild waves roll ;
And all too deeply hadst thou learned
The lore of woman's heart —
The thoughts in thine own breast that burned
Taught thee that mournful part.
Thine never was a woman's dower
Of tenderness and love,
Thou, who couldst chain the eagle's power,
Cou'd never tame the dove ;
Oh, Love is not for such as thee :
The gentle and the mild,
The beautiful thus blest may be,
But never Fame's proud child
When mid the hal!s of state, alone,
In queenly pride of place,
The majesty of mind thy throne,
Thy sceptre mental grace —
Then was thy glory felt, and thou
Didst triumph in that hour
When men could turn from beauty's brow
In tribute to thy power.
And yet a woman's heart was thine —
No dream of fame could fill
The bosom which must vainly pine
For sweet affection still ;
And oh. what pangs thv spirit wrung,
E'en in thy hour of pride,
\Vhen all could list Love's wooing tongue
Save thee, bright Glory's bride.
Curinna ! thine own hand has traced
Thy melancholy fate,
Though by earth's noblest triumphs graced,
waits not on the grea :
Only in lowly places sleep
Life's flowers of sweet perfume,
And they who climb Fame's mountain-steep
Must mourn their own high doom.
HEART QUESTIONINGS.
WHEN Life's false oracles, no more replying
To baffled hope, shall mock my weary quest,
When in the grave's cold shadow calmly lying,
This heart at last has found its earthly rest,
How will ye think of me ]
Oh, gentle friends, how wiil ye think of me 1
Perhaps the wayside flowers around ye springing
WastingjUrrmarked. their fragrance and their bloom,
Or some fresh fountain, through the forest singing,
Unheard, unheeded, may recall mv doom :
Will ye thus think of me 1
May not the daybeam glancing o'er the ocean,
Picture my restless heart, which, like yon wave,
Reflected doubly, in its wild commotion,
Each ray of light that pleasure's sunshine gave 1
Will ye thus think of me 1
Wiil ye bring back, by Memory's art, the gladness
That sent my fancies forth, like summer birds ]
Or will ye list that undertone of sadness,
Whose music seldom shaped itself in words ]
Will ye thus think of me 1
Remember not how dreams, around me thronging,
Enticed me ever from life's lowly way,
But oh ! still hearken to the deep soul longing,
Whose mournful tones pervade the poet's lay :
Will ye thus think of me 1
And then, forgetting every wayward feeling,
Bethink ye only that I loved ye well,
Till o'er your souls that " late remorse" is stealing,
Whose voiceless anguish only tears can tell.
Will ye thus think of me 1
Oh, gentle friends ! will ye thus think of me 7
NEVP:R FORGET.
NETKR forget the hour of our first meeting,
When, mid the sounds of revelry and song,
Only thy soul could know that mine was greeting
Its idol, wished for, waited for, so long.
Never forget.
Never forget the joy of that revealment,
Centring an age of bliss in one sweet hour,
When Love broke forth from friendship's frail con
cealment,
And stood confest to us in godlike power :
Never forget.
Never forget my heart's intense devotion,
Its wealth of freshness at thy feet flung free —
Its golden hopes, whelmed in that boundless ocean,
Which merged all wishes, all desires, save thee:
Never forget.
Never forget the moment when we parted —
When from life's summer-cloud thebolt was hurled
That drove us, scathed in soul and broken hearted,
Alone to wander through this desert world
Never forget.
ELIZABETH M. CHANDLER.
(Bom 1807— Died 1834).
ELIZABETH MARGARET CHANDLER was born j
near Wilmington, in Delaware, on the twen- |
ty-fourth of December, 1807. Her father, an j
exemplary member of the society of Friends, |
after leaving college had become a physician,
but at this period he was a farmer, in easy
circumstances, and he continued his agricul
tural pursuits until the death of his wife,
when he removed to Philadelphia and re
sumed the practice of his profession. He
died in 1816, leaving two sons and a daugh
ter to the caie of their maternal grandmo
ther, in Burlington, New Jersey. Elizabeth,
the youngest of his children, was placed at
one of the schools of the society, in Philadel
phia, where she remained until about thir
teen years of age. She was remarkable, when
very young, for a love of books, and for a
habit of writing verses, and in iier seven
teenth year she began to send- pieces to the
journals. For a poem entitled The Slave-
Ship, written at eighteen, she received a
prize offered by the publishers of The Cas
ket, a monthly magazine, and this led to her
acquain tance with Mr. Benjamin Lundy, then
editor of The Genius of Universa^ Emanci
pation, to which paper she became from that
time a frequent contributor. She continued
in Philadelphia until the summer of 1830,
when, her health having failed, she accom
panied her brother to a rural town in Lena-
wee county, Michigan, where, at a place
which she named Hazlebank, she remained,
in intimate correspondence with a few friends,
and ia the occasional indulgence of her taste
for literary composition, until her death, on
the second of November, 1834.
The Poetical Works of Miss Chandler,
with a Memoir of her Life an<J Character,
and a collection of her Essays, Philanthropic
and Moral, principally relating to the Aboli
tion of Slavery, were published in Philadel
phia in 1836. These volumes are altogether
creditable to her principles and her abilities.
Her style and feelings were influenced by her
religious and social relations, and her wri
tings exhibit but little scope or variety ; but
the pieces that are here quoted, show how
well she might have succeeded, with a wider
experience and inspiration.
THE DEVOTED.
STERN faces were around her bent,
And eyes of vengeful ire,
And fearful were the words they spake,
Of torture, stake, and fire :
Yvi calmly in the midst she stood,
With eye undimmed and clear,
And though her lip and cheek were white,
She wore no signs of fear.
" Where is thy traitor spouse 1" they said ; —
A half-formed smile of scorn,
That curled upon her haughty lip,
Was back for answer borne ; —
"Where is thy traitor spouse V again,
In fiercer tones, they said,
And sternly pointed to the rack,
All rusted o'er with red !
Her heart and pulse beat firm and free —
But in a crimson flood,
O'er pallid lip, and cheek, and brow,
Rushed up the burning blood ;
She spake, but proudly rose her tones,
As when in hall or bower,
The haughtiest chief that round her stood
Had meekly owned their power.
" My noble lord is placed within
A safe and sure retreat" —
" Now tell us where, thou lady bright,
As thou wouldst mercy meet,
Nor deem thy life can purchase his ;
He can not 'scape our wrath,
For many a warrior's watchful eye
Is placed o'er every path.
"But thou mayst win his broad estates,
To grace thine infant heir,
And life and honor to thyself,
So thou his haunts declare."
She laid her hand upon her heart ;
Her eye flashed proud and clear,
And firmer grew her haughty tread —
" My lord is hidden here !
" And if ye seek to view his form,
Ye first must tear away.
From round his secret dwelling-place.
These walls of living clay !"
They quailed beneath her haughty glance
They silent turned aside,
And left her all unharmed amidst
Her loveliness and pride !
149
150
ELIZABETH M. CHANDLER.
THE BATTLE FIELD.
THE last fading sunbeam has sunk in the ocean,
And darkness has shrouded the fore.st and hill ;
The scenes that late rang with the battle's commotion
Now sleep 'neath the moonbeams serenely and still
Yet light misty vapors above them sti 1 hover,
And dimly the pale beaming crescent discover,
Though all the stern clangor of conflict is over,
And hushed the wild trump-note that echoed so
shrill.
Around me the steed and the rider are lying,
To wake at the bugle's loud summons no more —
And here is the banner that o'er them was flying,
Torn, trampled, and sullied, with earth and with
gore.
With morn — where the conflict the wildest was roar
ing,
Where sabres were clashing, and death -shot were
pouring,
That banner was proudest and loftiest soaring — •
Now — standard and bearer alike are no more !
All hushed ! not a breathing of life from the numbers
That, scattered around me, so heavily sleep —
Hath the cup of red wine lent its fumes to their
slumbers,
And stained their bright garments with crimson so
deep!
Ah no ! these are not like gay revellers sleeping,
The nightwirids, unfeit, o'er their bosoms are sweep
ing,
Ignobly their plumes o'er the damp ground are creep
ing,
And dews, all uncared for, their bright falchions
steep.
Bright are they 1 at morning they were — ay, at
morning
Yon forms were proud warriors, with hearts beat
ing high ;
The smiles of stern valor their lips were adorning,
And triumph flashed out from the glance of their
eye !
But now : sadly altered the evening hath found them,
They care not for conquest, disgrace can not wound
them,
Distinct but in name, from the earth spread around
them,
Beside their red broadswords unconscious they lie.
How still is the scene ! save when dismally whooping,
The nightbird afar hails the gathering gloom, [ing
Or a heavy sound tells that their comrades are scoop-
A couch, where the sleepers may rest in the tomb.
.Mas! ere yon planet again shall be lighted,
"What hearts shall be broken, what hopes will be
blighted,
How many, midst sorrow's dark storm-clouds be
nighted,
Shall envy, e'en while they lament, for thy doom.
Oh war! when thou'rt clothed in the garments of
,
When Freedom has lighted thy torch 'at her shrine,
And proudly thy deeds are emblazoned in story,
We think nut, we feel not, what horrors are thine.
B ut oh,when the victors and vanquish'd have parted,
When 'onely we stand on the war ground deserted,
And (hinicof the dead, and of those broken hearted,
Thy blood-sprinkled laurel wreath ceases to shine.
A REVOLUTIONARY SOLDIER'S PRAYER.
I CAUK not for the hurried march
Through August's burning noon,
Nor for the long cold ward at night,
Beneath the dewy moon ;
I've calmly felt the winter's storms
O'er my unsheltered head,
And trod the snow with naked foot,
Till every track was red !
My soldier's fare is poor and scant —
'Tis what my comrades share,
Yon heaven my only canopy —
But that I well can bear;
A dull and feverish weight of pain
Is pressing on my brow,
And I am faint with recent wounds —
For that I care not now.
But oh, I long once more to view
My childhood's dwelling-place,
To clasp my mother to my heart —
To see my father's face !
To list each well-remembered tone,
To gaze on every eye
That met my ear, or thrilled my heart,
In moments long gone by.
In vain with long and frequent draught
Of every wave I sip —
A quenchless and consuming thirst
Is ever on my lip !
The very air that fans my cheek
No blessed coolness brings —
A burning heat or chilling damp
Is ever on its wings.
Oh ! let me seek my home once more—
For but a little while —
But once above my couch to see
My mother's gentle smile ;
It haunts me in my waking hours —
'T is ever in my dreams,
With all the pleasant paths of home,
Rocks, woods, and shaded streams.
There is a fount — I know it well
It springs beneath a rock,
Oh, how its coolness and its light,
My feverish 'fancies mock !
I pine to lay me by its side,
And bathe my lips and brow,
'T would give new fervor to the heart
That beats so languid now.
I may not — I must linger here —
Perchance it may be just !
But well I know this yearning soon
Will scorch my heart to dust ;
One breathing of my native air
Had called me back to life —
But I must die — must waste away
Beneath this inward strife !
ELIZABETH M. CHANDLER.
151
THE BRANDYWINE
MY foot has climbed the rocky summit's height,
And in mute rapture from its lofty brow
Mine eye is gazing round me with delight
On all of beautiful, above, below:
The fleecy smoke-wreath upward curling slow,
The silvery waves half hid with bowering green,
That far beiK-ath in gentle murmurs flow,
Or on ward dash in foam or sparkling sheen : [scene.
While rocks and forest-boughs hide ha f the distant
In sooth, from this bright wilderness 'tis sweet
To look through loopholes formed bv forest boughs,
And view t.,e landscape far beneath the feet,
Where cultivation all its aid bestows,
And o er the scene an added beauty throws;
The busy harvest group, the distant mill,
Tht- quiet cattle stretched in calm repose,
Thn cot, ha f seen behind the sloping hill —
A I minted in one scene with most enchanting skill
The very air that breathes around rny cheek —
T.ie summer fragrance of my native hil.s —
See. us with t .e voice of other times to speak,
And, while it each unquiet feeling stills, ,-
Mv pensive sou1 with hallowed memories fills:
My fathers' hall is there ; their feet have pressed
Tli > il nver-gemnied margin of these gushing rills,
When lightly on the water's dimpled breast [rest.
Their own light bark beside the frail canoe would
ri he rj;/k was once your dwel ing-place, my sires !
Or cavern scooped within the green hih's side;
The pr Avling wolf fled far your beacon fires,
And tae kind Indian half your wants supplied;
While round \ our necks the wampum-belt he tied,
He bade you on his lands in peace abide,
Nor dread the wakening of the midnight brand,
Oraught of broken faith to loose the peacebelt's band.
Oh ! if there is in beautiful and fair
A potency to charm, a power to bless ;
If bright blue skies and music-breathing air,
And nature in her every varied dress
Of peaceful beauty and wi d loveliness,
Can shed across the heart one sunshine ray,
'J hen others, too, sweet stream, with only less
Th in mine own joy, shall gaze. and bear away [day
So.ne cherished thought of thee for many a coining
But yet not utterly obscure thy hanks,
N >r all unknown to history's page thy name;
For there wi d war hath poured his battle ranks,
And stamped in characters of blood and flame,
Thine annals in the chronicles of fame.
The wave t'lat ripples on, so calm and still,
Hath trembled at the war-cry's loud acclaim,
T.ie cannon's voice hath rolled from hill to hill,
And midst thy echoing vales the trump hath sounded
shrill.
My country's standard waved on yonder height,
Her red cross banner England there displayed,
And there the German, who, for foreign fight,
Had left his own domestic hearth, and made
War, with its horrors and its blood, a trade,
Amidst the battle stood ; and all the day,
The bursting bomb, the furious cannonade,
The bugle's martial notes, the musket's play,
In mingled uproar wild, resounded far away.
Thick clouds of smoke obscured the clear bright
And hung above them like a funeral pall, [sky,
Shrouding both friend and foe, so soon to lie
Like brethren slumbering in one father's hall :
The work of death went on, and when the fall
Of night came onward silently, and shed .„
A dreary hush, where late was uproar all,
How many a brother's heart in anguish bled [dead.
O'er cherished ones, who there lay resting with the
Unshrouded and uncoffined they were laid
Within the soldier's grave — e'en where they fell:
At noon they proudly trod the field — the spado
At night dug out their resting-place ; and well
And calmly did they slumber, though no bell
Pea'ed over them its solemn music slow :
The night winds sung their only dirge — their knell
Was but the owlet's boding cry of wo, [ters' flow.
The flap of nighthawk's wing, and murmuring wa-
But it is over now — the plough hath rased
All trace of where War's wasting hand hath been :
No vestige of the battle may be traced,
Save where the share, in passing o'er the scene,
Turns up some rusted ball ; the maize is green
On what was once the death-bed of the brave ;
The waters have resumed their wonted sheen,
The wild bird sings in cadence with the wave,
And naught remains to show the sleeping soldier's
grave.
A pebble-stone that on the war-field lay,
And a wild rose that blossomed brightly there,
Were all the relics that I bore away,
To tell that I had trod the scene of war,
When I had turned my footsteps homeward far
These may seem childish things to some ; to me
They shall he treasured ones — and, like the stai
That guides the sailor o'er the pathless sea,
They shall lead back my thoughts, loved Brandy-
wine, to thee !
SUMMER MORNING.
'T is beautiful, when first the dewy light
Breaks on the earth ! while yet the scented air
Is breathing the cool freshness of the night,
And the bright clouds a tint of crimson wear
When every leafy chalice holds a draught
Of nightly dew, for the hot sun to drink, [laughed
When streams gush sportively, as though they
For very joyousness, and seemed to shrink
In playful terror from the rocky brink
Of some, s'ight precipice — then with quick leap
Bound lightly o'er the barrier, and sink
In their own whirling eddy, and then sweep
With rippling music on, or in their channels sleep !
While lights and shades play on them with each
breath
That moves the calm, still waters; when the fly
Skims o'er the surface, and all things beneath
Gleam brightly through the flood, and fish glanco
With a quick flash of beauty , vhen the sky [by
Wears a deep azure brightness, and the song
Of matin gladness lifts its voice on h(gh,
And mingled harmony and perfume throng
On every whispering breeze that lightly floats along
THE DAVIDSONS.
THE lives of LUCRETIA MARIA and MAR-
SARET MILLER DAVIDSON, which ii is impos
sible to contemplate without emotions of
admiration and sadness, have been illustra
ted at home by Professor Morse, by Wash
ington Irving-, and by Miss Sedgwick, and
abroad by Mr. Southey and several other
authors of well-deserved eminence in the
literary world. An attempt to invest them
with any new interest would therefore be
in vain. It is duubtful whether the annals
of literary composition can show anything,
produced at the same age, finer than some
of their poems ; and the beauty of their char
acters, which appear to have had in them
something of angelic holiness, fitted them as
well to shine in heaven, as their genius to
win the applauses of the w^orld.
Those who are familiar with our literary
history may remember that a remarkable
precocity of intellect has been frequently ex
hibited in this country. The cases of Lu-
cretia and Margaret Davidson are perhaps
more interesting than any which have re
ceived the general attention ; but they are
not the most wonderful that have been known
here. A few years ago I was shown, by one
of the house of Harper and Brothers, the
publishers, some verses by a girl but eight
years of age — the daughter of a gentleman
in Connecticut — that seemed nut inferior to
any composed by the Davidsons ; and other
prodigies of the same kind are at this time
exciting the hopes of more than one family.
Greatness is not often developed in child
hood, and where a strange precocity is ob
servable, it is generally but an early and
complete maturity of the mind. We can
not always decide, to even our own satisfac
tion, whether it is so, but as the writings of
i!i» -r children, when they were from nine to
lifer;! years of age, exhibited no advance
ment, it is reasonable to suppose that, like
the wonderful boy Zerah Colburn, of Ver
mont, whose arithmetical calculations many
years ago astonished the world, they would
have possessed in their physical maturity no
high or peculiar intellectual qualities.
The father of Lucretia and Margaret Da
vidson was a physician. Their 'mother's
maiden name was Margaret Miller. She
was a woman of an ardent temperament and
an affectionate disposition, and had been care-
| fully educated. Lucretia was born in the
village of Plattsburg, in New York, on the
twenty-seventh of September, 1808. In her
infancy she was exceedingly fragile, but she
grew stronger when about eighteen months
old, and though less vigorous than most chil
dren of her age, suffered little for several
years from sickness. She learned the al
phabet in her third year, and at four was.
sent to a public school, where she was taught
to read and to form letters in sand, after the
Lancasterian system. As soon as she could
read, her time was devoted to the little books
that were given to her, and to composition.
Her mother, at one time, wishing to write a
letter, found that a quire or more of paper
had disappeared from the place where wri
ting implements were kept, and when she
made inquiries in regard to it, the child came
forward and acknowledged that she had
" used it." As Mrs. Davidson knew she had
not been taught to write, she was surprised,
and inquired in what manner it had been
destroyed. Lucretia burst into tears, and
replied that she did not like to tell. The
question was not urged. The paper contin
ued to disappear, and she was frequently
observed with little blank books, and pens,
arid ink, sedulously shunning observation.
At length, when she was about six years old,
her mother found hidden in a closet, rarely
opened, a parcel of papers which proved to
be her manuscript books. On one side of
each leaf was an artfully sketched picture,
and on the other, in rudely formed letters,
were poetical explanations.
From this time she acquired knowledge
very rapidly, studying intensely at school,
and reading in every leisure moment at home.
When about twelve years of age she accom
panied her father to a celebration of the
birth-night of Washington. She had stud
ied the history of the father of his country.
152
THE DAVIDSONS.
and the scene awakened her enthusiasm.
The next day an older sister found her ab
sorbed in writing. She had drawn an urn,
and written two stanzas beneath it. They
were shown to her mother, who expressed
her delight with such animation that the
child immediately added the concluding ver
ses, and returned with the poem as it is
printed in her Remains :
And does a hero's dust lie here 1
Columbia ! gaze and drop a tear !
His country's and the orphan's friend,
See thousands o'er his ashes bend !
Among the heroes of the age,
He was the warrior and the sage :
He left a train of glory bright,
Which never will be hid in night.
The toils of war and danger past,
He reaps a rich reward at last ;
His pure soul mounts on cherub's wings,
And now with saints and angels sings.
The brightest on the list of fame,
In golden letters shines his name ;
Her trump shall sound it through the world,
And the striped banner ne'er be furled !
And every sex, and every age,
From lisping boy to learned sage,
The widow, and her orphan son,
Revere the name of Washington.
She continued to write with much indus
try from this period. In the summer of 1823,
her health being very feeble, she was with
drawn from school, and sent on a visit to
some friends in Canada. In Montreal she
was delighted with the public buildings, mar
tial parades, pictures, and other novel sights,
and she returned to Plattsburg with renova
ted health. Her sister Margaret was born
on the twenty-sixth of March, 1823, and a
few days afterward, while holding the infant
in her lap, she wrote the following lines:
Sweet babe ! I can not hope that thou 'It be freed
From woes, to all since earliest time decreed ;
But may'st thou be with resignation blessed,
To bear each evil howsoe'er distressed.
May Hope her anchor lend amid the storm,
And o'er the tempest rear her angel form ;
May sweet Benevolence, whose words are peace,
To the rude whirlwind softly whisper — cease !
And may Religion, Heaven's own darling child,
Teach tbee at human cares and griefs to smile —
Teach thee to look beyond that world of wo,
To Heaven's high fount whence mercies ever flow.
And when this vale of years is safely passed,
When Death's dark curtain shuts the scene at last,
May thy freed spirit leave this earthly sod,
• And fly to seek the bosom of thy God.
In the summer of 1824 she finished her
longest poem, Amir Khan, and in the autumn
of the same year was sent to the seminary of
Mrs. Willard, at Troy, where she remained
during the winter. In May, 1825, after
spending several weeks at home, she was
transferred to a boarding-school at Albany,
and here her health, which had before been
slightly affected, rapidly declined. In com
pany with her mother, and Mr. Moss Kent,
a gentleman of fortune, who- had undertaken
to defray the costs of her education, she re
turned to Plattsburg in July, and died there
on the twenty-seventh of August, one month
before her seventeenth birthday. She re
tained, until her death, the purity and sim
plicity of childhood, and died in the confident
hope of immortal happiness.
Soon after her death, her poems and prose
writings were published, with a memoir by
Mr. S. F. B. Morse, of New York, and an
elaborate biography of her life and character
has since been written by Miss C. M. Sedg-
wick, the author of Hope Leslie, etc. The
following verses are among the most perfect
she produced. They were addressed to her
sister, Mrs. Townsend, in her fifteenth year :
When evening spreads her shades around,
And darkness fills the arch of heaven ;
Wrhen not a murmur, not a sound,
To Fancy's sportive ear is given ;
When the broad orb of heaven is bright,
And looks around with golden eye ;
When Nature, softened by her light,
Seems calmly, solemnly to lie ;
Then, when our thoughts are raised above
This world, and all this world can give :
Oh, sister, sing the song I love,
And tears of gratitude receive.
The song which thrills my bosom's core,
And hovering, trembles, half afraid,
Oh, sister, sing the song once more
Which ne'er for mortal ear was made.
'T were almost sacrilege to sing
Those notes amid the glare of day — •
Notes borne by angels' purest wing,
And wafted by their breath away.
When sleeping in my grass-grown bed,
Shouldst thou still linger here above,
Wilt thou not kneel beside my head,
And, sister, sing the song I love 1
At the same age she wrote these lines To a
Star :
Thou brightly glittering star of even,
Thou gem upon the brow of heaven.
Oh ! were this fluttering spirit free,
How quick 't would spread its wings to th»»3.
lf)4
THE DAVIDSONS.
How ca'rnly, brightly, dost thou shine,
Like the pure lamp in Virtue's shrine :
Sure the fair world which thou may'st boast
Was never ransomed, never lost.
There, beings pure as heaven's own air,
Their hopes, their joys, together share ;
While hovering angels touch the string,
And seraphs spread the sheltering wing.
There, cloudless days and brilliant nights,
Illumed by Heaven's refulgent lights —
There seasons, years, unnoticed roll,
And unregretted by the soul.
Thou little sparkling star of even,
Thou gem upon an azure heaven,
How swiftly will I soar to thee,
When this imprisoned soul is free.
In her sixteenth year she wrote Three
Prophecies, of which the following is one :
Let- me gaze awhile on that marble brow,
On that full, dark eye, on that cheek's warm glow ;
Let. me gaze for a moment, that, ere I die,
I may read thee, maiden, a prophecy.
That brow may beam in glory awhile ;
That cheek may bloom, and that lip may smile ;
That full, dark eye may brightly beam
In life's gay morn, in hope's young dream ;
But clouds shall darken that brow of snow, '
And sorrow bright thy bosom's glow.
I know by that spirit so haughty and high,
I know by that brightly flashing eye,
That, maiden, there's that within thy breast
Which hath marked thee out for a soul unblessed:
The strife of love with pride shall wring
Thy youthful bosom's tenderest string;
And the cup of sorrow, mingled for thee,
Shall be drained to the dregs in'agony.
5Tes, maiden, yes, I read in thine eye
A dark and a doubtful prophecy :
Thou shall love, and that love shall be thy curse ;
Thou wilt need no heavier, thou shalt feel no worse.
I see the cloud and the tempest near ;
The voice of the troubled tide I hear ;
The torrent of sorrow, the sea of grief,
The rushing waves of a wretched life :
Thy bosom's bark on the surge I see,
And, maiden, thy loved one is there with thee.
Not a star in the heavens, not a light on the wave :
Maiden, I've gazed on thine early grave.
When I am cold, and the hand of Death
Hath crowned my brow with an icy wreath ;
When the dew hangs damp on this motionless lip;
When this eye is closed in its long, last sleep :
Then, maiden, pause, when thy heart beats high,
And think on my last sad prophecy.
In a more sportive vein is the piece enti
tled Auction Extraordinary, written about the
same period :
I dreamed a dream in the midst of my slumbers,
And as fast as I dreamed it, it came into numbers ;
My thoughts ran along w such beautiful me*re,
I 'in sure I ne'er saw any poetry sweeter:
It seemed that a law had been recently made,
That a tax on old bachelors' pates should be laid
And in order to make them all willing to marry,
The tax was as large as a man cou'd well carry
The bachelors grumbled, and said 'twas no use—
'Twas horrid injustice, and horrid abuse,
And declared that to save their own hearts' blooc
from spilling,
Of such a vi e tax they would not pay a shilling
But the rulers determined them still to pursue,
So they set all the old bachelors up at vendue:
A crier was sent through the town to and fro,
To rattle his bell, and his trumpet to blow,
And to call out to all he might meet in his way,
" Ho ! forty o'd bachelors sold here to-day :"
And presently all the o'd maids in the town,
Each in her very best bonnet and gown,
From thirty to sixt\, fair, plain, red, and pale,
Of every description, all flocked to the sale.
The auctioneer then in his labor began,
And called out aloud, as he held up a man,
" How much for a bachelor ? who wants to buy ?'
In a twink, every maiden responded, " I, — I."
In short, at a highly extravagant price,
The bachelors all were sold off in a trice :
And forty old maidens, some younger, some older,
Each lugged an old bachelor home on her shoulder.
A few months hefore her death she wrote
this address to her mo Jier :
Oh thou whose care sustained my infant years,
And taught my prattling lip each note of love ;
Whose soothing voice breathed comfort to my fears,
And round my brow hope's brightest garland wove:
To thee my lay is due, the simplest song,
Which Nature gave me at life's opening day ;
To thee these rude, these untaught strains belong,
Whose heart indulgent will not spurn my lay.
Oh say, amid this wilderness of life, [me ?
What boso;n would have throbbed like thine for
WTho would have smiled responsive 1 — who in grief
Would e'er have felt,and,feeang, grieved like thee?
Who would have guarded, with a falcon eye,
Each trembling footstep or each sport of fear?
Who would have marked my bosom bounding high,
And clasped me to her heart,with love's bright tear?
Who would have hung around my sleepless couch,
And fanned, with anxious hand, my burning brow?
Who would have fondly pressed my fevered lip,
In all the agony of love and wo ?
Vone but a mother — none but one like thee,
WThose bloom has faded in the midnight watch ;
Whose eye, for me, has lost its witchery ;
Whose form has felt disease's mildew touch.
Yes, thou hast lighted me to health and life,
By the bright lustre of thy youthful bloom — •
Yes, thou hast wept so oft o'er every grief.
That wo hath traced thy brow with marks of gloom.
Oh, then, to thee this rude and simple song,
Which breathes of thankfulness and love for thee,
To thee, my mother, shall this lay belong,
Whose life is spent in toil and care for me.
THE DAVIDSONS.
155
She died with her " singing robes" about
her, having composed, while confined to her
bed in her last illness, these verses, expres
sive of her fear of madness :
There is a something which I dread,
It is a dark, a fearful thing ;
It steals along with withering tread,
Or sweeps on wild destruction's wing.
That thought comes o'er me in the hour
Of grief, of sickness, or of sadness :
'Tis not the dread of death — 'tis more,
It is the dread of madness.
Oh ! may these throbbing pulses pause,
Forgetful of their feverish course ;
May this hot brain, which burning, glows
With all a fiery whirlpool's forcr
Be cold, and motionless, and still —
A tenant of its lowly bed ;
But let not dark delirium steal
The poem is unfinished, and it is the last
she wrote.
MARGARET DAVIDSON, at the time of the
death of Lucretia, was not quite two years
old. The event made a deep and lasting
impression on her mind. She loved, when
but three years old, to sit on a cushion at her
mother's feet, listening to anecdotes of her
sister's life, and details of the events which
preceded her death, and would often exclaim,
while her face beamed with mingled emo
tions, "Oh, I will try to fill her place — teach
me to be like her !" She needed little teach
ing. In intelligence, delicacy, and suscep
tibility, she surpassed Lucretia. When in
her sixth year, she could read with fluency,
and would sit by the bedside of her sick
mother, reading, with enthusiastic delight
and appropriate emphasis, the poetry of
Milton, Cowper, Thomson, and other great
authors, and marking, with discrimination,
the passages with which she was most
pleased. Between the sixth and seventh
years of her age, she entered on a general
course of education, studying grammar, ge
ography, history, and rhetoric ; but her con
stitution had already begun to show symp
toms of decay, which rendered it expedient
to check her application. In her seventh
summer she was taken to the springs of
Saratoga, the waters of which seemed to
have a beneficial effect, and she afterward
accompanied her parents to New York, with
which city she was highly delighted. On
her return to Plattsburg, her strength was
much increased, and she resumed her stud
ies with great assiduity. In the autumn
of 1830, however, her health began to fail
again, and it was thought proper for her and
her mother to join Mrs. Townsend, an elder
sister, in an inland town of Canada. She
remained here until 1833, when she had a
severe attack of scarlet fever, and on her
slow recovery it was determined to go again
to New York. Her residence in the city was
protracted until the summer heat became
oppressive, and she expressed her yearnings
for the banks of the Saranac, in the following
lines, which are probably equal to any ever
written by so young an author :
I would fly from the city, would fly from its care,
To my own native plants and my flowerets so fair,
To the cool grassy shade and the rivulet bright,
Which reflects the pale moon in its bosom of light:
Again would I view the old cottage so dear,
Where I sported, a babe, without sorrow or fear:
I would leave this great city, so brilliant and gay,
For a peep at my home on this- fair summer-day.
I have friends whom I love, and would leave with
regret,
But the love of my home, oh, 'tis tenderer yet;
There a sister reposes unconscious in death,
'T was there she first drew, and there yielded her
A father I love is away from me now — [breath.
Oh, could I but print a sweet kiss on his brow,
Or smooth the gray locks to my fond heart so dear,
How quick'y would vanish each trace of a tear:
Attentive I listen to Pleasure's gay call,
But my own happy home, it is dearer than all.
The family soon after became temporary
residents of the village of Ballston, near Sa-
ratoga,and,intheau;umn of 1835, of Rure-
mont, on the sound, or East river, about four
miles from New York. Here they remained,
except at short intervals, until the summer
of 1837, when they returned 4o Ballston. In
the last two years, Margaret had suffered
much from illness herself, and had lost by
death her sister Mrs. Townsend and two
brothers ; and now her mother became alarm
ingly ill. As the season advanced, however,
health seemed to revisit all the surviving
members of the family, and Margaret was
as happy as at any period of her life. Early
in 1838, Dr. Davidson took a house in Sara
toga, to which he removed on the first of
May. Here she had an attack of bleeding
at the lungs, but recovered, and when her
brothers visited home from New York, she
returned with them to the city, and remained
there several weeks. She reached Saratoga
again in July ; the bloom had for the last
time left her cheeks ; and she decayed grad
ually until the twenty-fifth of November
156
THE DAVIDSONS.
when her spirit returned to God. She was
then but fifteen years and eight months old.
She was aware of her approaching change,
and in the preceding September she wrote a
short poem, characterized by much beauty of
thought and tenderness of feeling, to her bro
ther, a young officer in the army, stationed
at a frontier post in the west, in which an
allusion lo the fading verdure, and falling
leaf, and gathering melancholy, and lifeless
quiet of the season, as typical of her own
b.i .jilted youth and approaching dissolution,
is pointed out by Mr. Irving as having in it
s^moJiing peculiarly solemn and affecting.
" Bu when," she says:
" But when, in the s'.iadc of the autumn wood,
i nv wandering footsteps stray ;
When yel ow leaves and perishing buds
Are scattered in ti.y way ;
When all around thce breathes of rest,
And sad.ioss and decay —
With the drooping tbwer, and the fallen tree,
Oh, brother, b.end thy thoughts of me !"
Her later poems do not seern to me supe
rior to some written in her eleventh year,
and the prose compositions included in the
volume of her Remains, edited by Mr. Irving,
are not better than those of many girls of
her age. One cf her latest and most perfect
pieces is the dedication of a poem entitled
Leonore to the spirit of her sister Lucretia:
Oh, thou, so early lost, so long deplored !
Pure spirit of my sister, be thou near !
And while I t.iuch this hallowed harp of thine,
Bend from the skies, sweet sister, bend and hear.
For thee I pour this unaffected lay ;
To thee these simple numbers all belong:
For though thine earthly form has passed away,
Thy memory still inspires my childish song.
Take, then, this feeble tribute — 'tis thine own —
Thy fingers sweep my trembling heart-strings o'er,
Arouse to harmony each buried tone,
And bid its wakened music sleep no more !
LOIU has thy voice been silent, and thy lyre
Hung o'er thy grave, in death's unbroken rest;
But when its last sweet tones were borne away,
One answering echo lingered in my breast
Oh, thou pure spirit ! if thou hoverest near,
Accept these lines, unworthy though they be,
Faint echoes from thy fount of song divine,
By thee inspired, and dedicate to thee !
Leonore is the longest of her poems, and
it was commenced after much reflection, and
written with care and a resolution to do
something that should serve as the measure
}(' her genius, and carry her name into the
future. It is a story of romantic love, hap
pily conceived, and illustrated with some
fine touches of sentiment and fancy. It is
a creditable production, arid would entitle
a much older author to consideration ; but
its best passages scarcely equal some of her
earlier and less elaborate performances.
The following lines addressed to her mo
ther, a few days before her death, are the
last she ever wrote :
Oh, mother, would the power were mine
To wake the strain thou lovest to hear,
And breathe each trembling new-born thought
Within thy fondly listening ear,
As when, in days of health and glee,
My hopes and fancies wandered free.
But, mother, now a shade hath passed
Athwart my brightest visions here ;
A cloud of darkest gloom hath wrapped
The remnant of my brief career:
No song, no echo can I win,
The sparkling fount hath dried within.
The torch of earthly hope burns dim,
And fancy spreads her wings no more,
And oh, how vain and trivial seem
The pleasures that I prized before ;
My soul, with trembling steps and slow,
Is struggling on through doubt and strife ;
Oh, may it prove, as time rolls on,
The pathway to eternal life !
Then, when my cares and fears are o'er,
I '11 sing thee as in " days of yore."
I said that Hope had passed from earth —
'T was but to fold her wings in heaven,
To whisper of the soul's new birth,
Of sinners saved and sins forgiven:
When mine are washed in tears away,
Then sha;l my spirit swell the lay.
When God shall guide my soul above,
By the soft chords of heavenly love —
When the vain cares of earth depart,
And tuneful voices swell mv heart,
Then shall each word, each note I raise,
Burst forth in pealing hymns of praise:
And all not offered at his sbrine,
Dear mother, I will place on thine.
In 1843, a volume entitled Selections from
the Writings of Mrs. Margaret M. Davidson,
the mother of Lucretia Maria and Margaret
Miller Davidson, was published, with a pref
ace by Miss Sedgwick. There is nothing in
the book to arrest attention. Mrs. Davidson
has some command of language and a know
ledge of versification, and the chief produc
tion of her industry in this line is a para
phrase of six books of Fingal. Her writings
are interesting only as indexes to the early
culture of her daughters.
MAEY E. STEBBINS.
THE maiden name of Mrs. STEBBINS was
MARY ELIZABETH MOORE, and she is a na
tive of Maiden, a country town about five
miles from Boston, in which city she re
sided until her removal to New York, in
1829, about two years after her marriage
with Mr. James L. Hewitt.
Mrs. Stebbins' earlier poems appeared in
The Knickerbocker Magazine and other pe
riodicals, under the signature of "lone,"
and in 1 845 she published in Boston a vol
ume entitled Songs of our Land and other
Poems, which confirmed the high opinions
which had been formed of her abilities from
the fugitive pieces that had been popularly
attributed to her. Her compositions in this
collection show that she has a fine and
well-cultivated understanding, informed
with womanly feeling and a graceful fancy,
and they are distinguished in an unusual
degree for lyrical power and harmony as
well as for sweetness of versification.
Among the more recent productions of
Mrs. Stebbins are some pure translations,
which illustrate her taste and learning
and fine command of language.
THE SONGS OF OUR LAND.
YK say we sing no household songs,
To children round our hearths at p'ay ;
No minstrelsy to us belongs,
No legend of a bygone day —
No old tradition of the hil s —
Our giant land no memory fills :
We have no proud heroic lay.
Ye ask the time-worn storied page —
Ye ask the lore of other age,
From us, a race of yesterday !
Of yore, in Britain's feudal halls,
Where manv a storied trophy hung
With shield and banner on the walls,
The Bard's high harp was sternly strung
In praise of war — its fierce delights —
To " heroes of a hundred fights."
The lofty sounding shell outrung !
Gone is the ancient Bardic race :
Their song hath found perpetual place
Their country's proud arphives among.
The stirring Scottish border tale
Pealed from the chords in chieftain's hall,
The wild traditions of the Gael
The wandering harper's lays recall.
Bold themes, Germania, fire thy strings;
And when the Marseillaise outrings,
With patriot ardor thrills the Gaul :
All have their legend and their song,
Records of glory, feud, and wrong —
Of conquest wrought, and foeman's fall.
Fond thought the Switzer's bosom fills
When sounds the " Rans des Vaches" on high. ;
A race as ancient as their hills
Still echoes that wild mountain cry.
He springs along the rocky height,
He marks the lamriergeyer's flight.
The startled chamois bounding by ;
He snuffs the mountain breeze of morn ;
He winds again the mountain horn,
And loud the wakened Alps reply !
Our fathers bore from Albion's isle
. No stories of her sounding lyres :
They left the old baronial pile —
They left the harp of ringing wires.
Ours are the legends still rehearsed,
Ours are the songs that g'adsome burst
By a'l your cot and palace fires :
Each tree that in your soft wind stirs,
Waves o'er our ancient sepulchres,
The sleeping ashes of our sires !
They left the gladsome Christmas chime,
The yule fire, and the misletoe ;
They left the vain, ungodly rhyme,
For hymns the solemn paced and slow ;
They left the mass, the stoled priest,
The scarlet woman and the beast,
For worship rude and altars low :
Their land, with its dear memories fraught,
They left for liberty of thought —
For stranger clime and savage foe.
And forth they went — nerved to forsake
Home, and the chain they might not wear
And woman's heart was strong to break
The links of love that bound her there :
Here, free to worship and believe,
From many a log-built hut at eve
Went up the suppliant voice of prayer.
Is it not writ on history's page,
That the strong hand grasped our heritage *
Of the lion claimed his forest lair !
Our people raised no loud war songs,
The shouted no fierce battle cry —
A bumng memory of their wrongs
Lit up their path to victory •
157
if) 9
MARY E. ST EBB INS.
With prayer to God to aid the right,
The yeoman girded him for fight,
To free the land he tilled, or die.
They bore no proud escutcheoned shield,
No blazoned banners to the field —
Naught but their watchword " Liberty !"
Their sons — when after-years shall fling
O'er these, romance — when time hath cast
The mighty shadow of his wing
Between them and the storied past —
Will tell of foul oppression's heel,
Of hands that bore the avenging steel,
And battled sternly to the last —
By their hearth-fires — on the free hill-side :
So shall our songs, o'er every tide,
Swell forth triumphant on the blast !
E'en now the word that roused our land
Is calling o'er the wave, " Awake !"
And pealing on from strand to strand,
Wherever ocean's surges break :
Up to the quickened ear of toil
It rises from the teeming soil,
And bids the slave his bonds forsake.
Hark ! from the mountains to the sea,
The old world echoes " Liberty !"
Till thrones to their foundations shake.
And ye who idly set at naught
The sacred boon in suffering won,
Read o'er our page with glory fraught,
Nor scoff that we no more have done :
Read how the nation of the free
Hath carved her deeds in history,
Nor count them bootless every one —
Deeds of our mighty men of old,
Whose names stand evermore enrolled
Beneath the name of Washington !
Oh, mine own fair and glorious land !
Did I not hold such faith in thee,
As did the honored patriot band
That bled to make thce great and free —
Did I not look to hear thee sung,
To hear thy lyre yet proudly strung,
Thou ne'er had waked my minstrelsy :
Arid I shall hear thy song resound,
Till from his shackles man shall bound,
And shout, exultant, " Liberty !"
THE TWO VOICES.
A VOICK went forth throughout the land,
And an answering voice replied
From the rock-piled mountain fastnesses
To the surging ocean tide.
And far the blazing headlands gleamed
With their land-awakening fires ;
A rid the hill-tops kindled, peak and height,
With a hundred answering pyres.
The quick youth snatrhed his father's sword,
And the yeoman rose in might ;
And the aged grandsire nerved him there
For the stormy field of fight :
And the hillmen left their grass-grown steeps,
And their flocks and herds unkept ;
And the ploughshare of the husbandman
In the half-turned furrow slept.
They wore no steel-wrought panoply,
Nor shield nor morion gleamed ;
Nor the flaunt of bannered blazonry
In the morning sunlight streamed.
They bore no marshalled, firm array —
Like a torrent on they poured,
With the fire'ock, and the mower's scythe,
And the old forefathers' sword.
And again a voice went sounding on,
And the bonfires streamed on high ;
And the hill-tops rang to the headlands back,
With the shout of victory !
So the land redeemed her heritage,
By the free hand mailed in right,
From the war-shod, hireling foeman's tread,
And the ruthless grasp of might.
THE AXE OF THE SETTLER.
THOU conqueror of the wilderness,
With keen and bloodless edge —
Hail ! to the sturdy artisan
Who welded thee, bold wedge !
Though the warrior deem the weapon
Fashioned only for the slave,
Yet the settler knows thee mightier
Than the tried Damascus glaive.
While desolation marketh
The course of foeman's brand,
Thy strong blow scatters plenty
And gladness through the land:
Thou opest the soil to culture,
To the sunlight and the dew ;
And the village spire thou plantest
Where of old the forest grew.
When the broad sea rolled between them
And their own far native land,
Thou wert the faithful ally
Of the hardy pilgrim band.
They bore no warlike eagles,
No banners swept the sky ;
Nor the clarion, like a tempest,
Swelled its fearful notes on high.
But the ringing wild reechoed
Thy bold, resistless stroke,
Where, like incense, on the morning
Went up the cabin smoke :
The tall oaks bowed before thee,
Like reeds before, the blast ;
And the earth put forth in gladness
Where the axe in triumph passed.
Then hail ! thou noble conqueror,
That, when tyranny oppressed,
Hewed for our tathers from the wild
A land wherein to rest :
Hail, to the power that giveth
The bounty of the soil,
And freedom, and an honored name,
To the hardy sons of toil !
MARY E. STEBBINS.
159
A THOUGHT OF THE PILGRIMS.
How beauteous in the morning light,
Bright glittering in her pride,
Trimountain,* from her ancient height,
Looks down upon the tide :
The fond wind woos her from the sea,
And ocean clasps her lovingly,
As bridegroom clasps his bride.
And out across the waters dark,
Careering on their way,
Full many a gal'ant, home-bound bark
Conies dashing up the bay :
Their pennons float on morning's gale,
The sun ight gilds each swelling sail,
And flashes on the spray.
Not thus toward fair New Eng'and's coastj
With eager-hearted crew,
The pil rim-freighted, tempest-tost,
And lonely May Flower drew :
There was no hand outstretched to bless,
No we 'come from the wilderness,
To cheer her hardy few.
But onward drove the winter clouds
Athwart the darkening sky,
And hoarsely through the stiffened shrouds
The wind swept stormily ;
While shrill from out the beetling rock,
'1 hat seemed the billows' force to mock,
Broke f rth the sea-gull's cry.
God's blessing on their memories !
Those sturdy men and bo'd,
Who girt their hearts in righteousness,
Like martyr saints of o'd ;
And mid oppression sternly sought,
To hold the sacred boon of Thought
In freedom uncontrolled.
They left the old, ancestral hall
The creed they might not own ;
They left home, kindred, fortune, all —
Left glory and renown :
For what to them was pride of birth,
Or vv'iat to them the pomp of earth,
Who sought a heavenly crown 1
Strong armed in faith they crossed the flood :
Here, mid the forest fair,
With axe and mattock, from the wood
They laid broad pastures bare ;
And with the ploughshare turned the plain,
And p anted fields of yellow grain
And built their dwc lings there.
The pilgrim sires ! — How from the night
Of centuries dim and vast,
It comes o'er every hi 1 arid height —
That watchword from the past !
And old men's pulses quicker bound,
And young hearts leap to hear the sound,
As at the trumpet's blast.
* Boston —built upon three hill? — was originallj named,
by tin- early settlorc, "Trimountain."
And though the Pilgrim's day hath set.
Its glorious light remains — •
Its beam refulgent lingers yet
O'er all New England's plains.
Dear land ! though doomed from thee to part,
The blood that warmed the Pilgrim's heart
Swells proudly in my veins !
Go to the islands of the sea,
Wherever man may dare —
Wherever pagan bows the knee,
Or Christian bends in prayer —
To every shore that bounds the main,
Wherever keel on strand hath lain —
New England's sons are there.
Toil they for wealth on distant coast,
Roam they from sea to sea :
Self-exiled, still her children boast
Their birthplace 'mong the free ;
Or seek they fame on glory's track,
Their hearts, like mine, turn ever back,
New England, unto thee !
THE CITY BY THE SEA.
CROWNED with the hoar of centuries,
There, by the eternal sea,
High on her misty cape she sits,
Like an eagle — fearless, free.
And thus in olden time she sat,
On that morn of long ago ;
Mid the roar of Freedom's armament,
And the war-bolts of her foe.
Old Time hath reared her pillared walls,
Her domes and turrets high :
WTith her hundred tall and tapering aspires,
All flashing to the sky.
Shall I not sing of thee, beloved 1
My beautiful, my pride !
Thou that towerest in thy queenly grace,
By the tributary tide.
There, swan-like crestest thou the waves
That, enamored, round thee swell —
Fairer than Aphrodit', couched
On her foam-wreathed ocean shell.
Oh, ever, mid this restless hum
Resounding from the street,
Of the thronging, hurrying multitude,
And the tread of stranger feet —
My heart turns back to thee — mine own !
My beautiful, my pride !
W7ith thought of thy free ocean wind,
And the clasping, fond old tide —
WTith all thy kindred household smokes,
Upwreathing far away ;
And the merry bells that pealed as now
On my grandsire's wedding-day :
To those green graves and truthful heart*
Oh, city by the sea !
My heritage, and priceless dower,
My beautiful,. Jn thee !
MARY E. STEBBIXS.
TUB SUNFLOWER TO THE SUN.
HVMKTTTS' hees are out on filmy wing,
Dim Phosphor slowly fades adown the west,
And Earth awakes. Shine on me, oh my king!
For I with dew am laden and oppressed.
Long through the misty clouds of morning gray
The flowers have watched to hail thee from yon
Sad Asphodel, that pines to meet thy ray, [sea:
And Juno's roses, pale for love of thee.
Perchance thou dalliest with the Morning Hour,
Whose blush is reddening now the eastern wave ;
Or to Lie c.oud for ever leav'st thy flower,
Wiled by the glance white-footed Thetis gave.
I was a proud Chaldean monarch's child !*
Euphrates' waters told me I was fair —
And thou, Thessa'ia's shepherd, on me smiled,
And likened to thine own my amber hair.
Thou art my life — sustain er of my spirit !
Leave me not then in darkness here to pine;
Other hearts love thee, yet do they inherit
A passionate devotedness like mine ]
But lo ! thou lift'st thy shield o'er yonder tide :
The gray clouds fly before the conquering Sun ;
Thou like a monarch up the heavens dost ride
And, joy ! thou beamst on me, celestial one !
On me, thy worshipper, thy poor Parsee,
Whose brow adoring types thy face divine —
God of my burning heart's idolatry,
Take root like me, or give me life like thine !
THE LAST CHANT OF CORINNE.
BY that mysterious sympathy which chaineth
For evermore my spirit unto thine ;
And by the memory, that alone remaineth,
Of that sweet hope that now no more is mine;
And by the love my trembling heart betrayeth,
That, born of thy soft gaze, within me lies;
As the lone desert-bird, the Arab sayeth,
Warms her young brood to life with her fond eyes :
Hoar me, adored one ! though the world divide us,
Though never more my hand in thine be pressed,
Though t > commingle thought be here denied us,
Till our high hearts shall beat themselves to rest ;
Forget me not, forget me not ! oh, ever
'J his one, one prayer, my spirit pours to thee ;
Ti!l every memory from earth shall sever,
Remember, oh, beloved ! remember me !
And when the light within mine eye is shaded,
When I, o'erwearied, sleep the sleep profound,
And like that nymph of yore who drooped and faded,
And pined for love, till she became a sound ;
My song, perchance, awhile to earth remaining,
Shall come in murmured melody to thee:
Then let my lyre's deep, passionate complaining,
Cry to thy heart, beloved—" Remember me !"
*('!y -la, .hm-hrer of Orchnmus kin- of Babvlon, w
l.e'«)v,.,l l,y Apollo; but the eod deserting her she nii»
away «•„!, c- .nnnually .azuu on tl,« ,un. and was
""• which mr
GREEN PLACES IN THE CITY.
YE fill my heart with gladness, verdant places,
That mid the city greet me where I pass ;
Methinks I see of angel-steps the traces
Where'er upon my pathway springs the grass.
I pause before your gates at early morning,
When lies the sward with glittering sheen o'er-
spread ;
And think the dewdrops there each blade adorning,
Are angels' tears for mortal frailty shed.
And ye, earth's firstlings, here in beauty springing,
Erst in your cells by careful Winter nursed —
And to the morning heaven your incense flinging,
As at His smile ye forth in gladness burst —
How do ye cheer with hope my lonely hour,
WThen on my way I tread despondingly,
With thought that He who careth for the flower,
Will, in his mercy, still remember me !
Breath of our nostrils — Thou ! whose love embraces,
Whose light shall never from our souls depart,
Beneath thy touch hath sprung a green oasis
Amid the arid desert of my heart.
Thy sun and rain call forth the bud of promise,
And with fresh leaves in spring-time deck the tree ;
That where man's hand hath shut out Nature from
We, by these glimpses, may remember Thee ! [us,
CAMEOS.
HEKCULES AXD OMPHALE.
RECLINED enervate on the couch of ease,
No more he pants for deeds of high emprise ;
For Pleasure holds in soft, voluptuous ties
Enthralled, great Jove-descended Hercules.
The hand that bound the Erymanthian boar,
Hesperia's dragon slew, with bold intent —
That from his quivering side in triumph rent
The skin the Cieonsean lion wore,
Holds forth the goblet — while the Lydian queen,
Rob'd like a nymph, her browenvvreath'd with vine,
Lifts high the amphora, brimmed with rosy wine,
Arid pours the draught the crowned cup within.
And thus the soul, abased to sensual sway,
Its worth forsakes — its might forgoes for aye.
TITTOS CHATXED IX TARTARUS.
OH, wondrous marvel of the sculptor's art!
Whatcumiinghand hath cull'd thee from themine.
And carved thee into life, with skill divine !
How claims in thee Humanity a part —
Seems from the gem the form enchained to start,
While thus with fiery eye, and outspread wings,
The ruthless vulture to his victim clings,
With whetted beak deep in the quivering heart.
Oh, thou embodied meaning, master-wrought !
Thus taught the sage, how, sunk in crime and sin,
The soul a prey to conscience, writhes within
Its fleshly bonds enslaved : thus ever, Thought,
The breast's keen torturer, remorseful tears
At life, the hell whose chain the soul in anguish
wears !
MARY E. STEBBIXS.
1G1
A YARN.
u'Tis Saturday night, and our watch be^w —
What heed we, boys, how the breezes blow,
While our cans are brimmed with the spark' ing flow:
Come, Jack — uncoil, as we pass the grog,
And spin us a yarn from memory's log."
Jack's brawny chest like the broad sea heaved,
While his loving lip to the beaker cleaved;
And he drew his tarred and well-saved sleeve
Across his mouth, as he drained the can,
And thus to his listening mates began :
« When I sailed a boy. in the schooner Mike,
No bigger, I trow, than a marlinspike —
But I've to'd ye the tale ere now, belike ?"
"Go on !" each voice reechoed,
And the tar thrice hemmed, and thus he said :
"A stanch-built craft as the waves e'er bore —
We had loosed our sails for home once more,
Freighted full deep from Labrador,
When a cloud one night rose on our lee,
That the heart of the stoutest quailed to see.
And voices wild with the winds were blent,
As our bark her prow to the waters bent ;
And the seamen muttered their discontent —
Muttered and nodded ominously —
But the mate, right carelessly whistled he.
1 Our bark may never outride the ga1^ —
'Tis a pitiless night ! the pattering hail
Hath coated each spar as 't were in mail ;
And our sails are riven before the breeze,
While our cordage and shrouds into icicles freeze !'
Thus spake the skipper beside the mast,
While the arrowy s eet fell thick and fast ;
And our bark drove onward before the blast
That goaded the waves, till the angry main
Rose up and strove with the hurricane.
Up spake the mate, and his tone was gay —
'Shall we at this hour to fear give way ]
We must labor, in sooth, as well as pray :
Out, shipmates, and grapple home yonder sail,
That flutters in ribands before the gale !'
Loud swelled the tempest, and rose the shriek —
' Save, save ! we are sinking ! — A leak ! a leak !'
And the hale old skipper's tawny cheek
Was cold, as 'twere sculptured in marble there,
And white as the foam, or his own white hair.
The wind piped shrilly, the wind piped loud —
It shrieked 'mong the cordage, it howled in the
shroud ;
And the sleet fell thick from the cold, dun cloud :
But hi_rh over all, in tones of glee,
The voice of the mate rang cheerily —
' Now, men, for your wives' and your sweethearts'
sakes !
Choer, messmates, cheer ! — quick ! man the brakes !
We'll gain on the leak ere the skipper wakes;
And though our peril your hearts appal,
Ere dawns the morrow we '11 laugh at the
squall.'
He railed at the tempest, he laughed at its threats,
He played with his fingers like castanets:
Yet think not that he, in his mirth, forgets
That the plank he is riding this hour at sea,
May launch him the next to eternity !
The white-haired skipper turned away,
And lifted his hands, as it were to pray ;
But his look spoke plainly as look could say,
The boastful thought of the Pharisee —
' Thank God, I 'm not hardened as others be !'
But the morning dawned, and the waves sank low,
And the winds, o'erwearied, forbore to blow ;
And our bark lay there in the golden glow —
Flashing she lay in the bright sunshine,
An ice-sheathed hulk on the cold, still brine.
Well, shipmates, my yarn is almost spun —
The cold and the tempest their work had done,
And I was the last, lone, living one,
Clinging, benumbed, to that wave-girt wreck,
WThile the dead around me bestrewed the deck.
Yea, the dead were round me every whet e !
The skipper gray, in the sunlight there,
Still lifted his paralyzed hands in prayer ; [leapt,
And the mate, whose tones through the darkness
In the silent hush of the morning, slept.
Oh, bravely he perished who sought to save
Our storm-tossed bark from the pitiless wave,
And her crew from a yawning and fathomless grave :
Crying, ' Messmates cheer !' with a bright,glad smile,
And praying, ' Be merciful, God !' the while.
True to his trust, to his last chill gasp,
The helm lay clutched in his stiff, cold grasp —
You might scarcely in death undo the clasp :
And his crisp, brown locks were dank and thin,
And the icicles hung from his bearded chin.
My timbers have weathered, since, many a gale
And when life's tempests this hulk assail,
And the binnacle lamp in my breast burns pale,
' Cheer, messmates, cheer '' to my heart I say,
< We must labor, in sooth, as well as pray !' "
IMITATION OF SAPPHO.
IF to repeat thy name when none may hear me,
To find thy thought with all my thoughts inwove,
To languish where thou 'rt not — to sigh when neai
Oh, if this be to love thee, 1 do love ! [thee :
If when thou utterest low words of greeting,
To feel through every vein the torrent pour;
Then back again the hot tide swift retreating,
Leave me all powerless, silent as before :
If to list breathless to thine accents falling,
Almost to pain, upon my eager ear —
And fondly when alone to be recalling
The words that I would die again to hear :
If 'neath thy glance my heart all strength forsaking,
Pant in my breast as'pants the frighted dove
If to think on thee ever, keeping — waking-
Oh ! if this be to love thee. I do love '
162
MARY E. STEBBIXS.
LOVE'S PLEADING.
SPKAK tender words, mine own beloved, to me —
Call me thy lily — thy imperial one,
That, like the Persian, breathes adoringly
Its train-ant worship ever to the sun.
Speak tender words, lest doubt with me prevail :
Call me thy rose — thy queen rose ! throned apart,
That all unheedful of the nightingale,
Fo'ds close the dew within her burning heart.
For thou 'rt the sun that makes my heaven fair,
Thy love, the blest dew that sustains me here;
A IK! like the plant that hath its root in air,
I only live within thy atmosphere.
L -ok on me with those soul-illumined eyes,
And murmur low in love's entrancing tone —
Methinks the angel-lute of paradise
Had never voice so thri ling as thine own !
Say I am dearer to thee than renown,
My praise more treasured than the world's acclaim:
Ca:l me thy laure' — thy victorious crown,
Wreathed in unfading g'ory round thy name.
Breathe low to me each pure, enraptured thought,
While thus thy arms my trusting heart entwine :
Call me by all fond meanings love hath wrought,
But oh, Ian this, ever call me thine !
THE HEARTH OF HOME.
THE storm around my dwelling sweeps,
And while the boughs it fiercely reaps,
My heart within a vigil keeps,
The warm and cheering hearth beside;
And as I mark the kind. ing glow
Bright y o'er a'l its radiance throw,
Back to the years my memories flow,
When Rome sat or, her hills in pride ;
When' every stream, and grove, and tree,
And fountain, had its deity.
The hearth was then, 'mong low and great,
Unto the Lares consecrate :
The youth, arrived to man's estate,
There offered up his golden heart ;
Thither, when overwhelmed with dread,
The stranger still for refuge fled —
Was kindly cheered, and warmed, and fed,
Till he might fearless thence depart:
And there the slave, a slave no more,
Hung reverent up the chain he wore.
Full many a change the hearth hath known;
The Druid fire, the curfew's tone,
The log that bright at yule-tide shone,
The merry sports of Hallow-e'en:
Yft sti.l where'er a home is found,
Gather the warm affections round,
And there the notes of mirth resound
The voice of wisdom heard between :
And welcomed there with words of grace,
The stranger finds a resting place.
Oh, wheresoe'er our feet may roam,
Still sacred is the hearth of home ;
Whether beneath the princely dome,
Or peasant's lowly roof it be,
For home the wanderer ever yearns ;
Backward to where its hearth-fire burns,
Like to the wife of old, he turns
Fondly the eyes of memory :
Back where his heart he offered first —
Back where his fair, young hopes he nursed.
My humble hearth though all disdain,
Here may I cast aside the chain
The world hath coldly on me lain —
Here to my Lares offer up
The warm prayer of a grateful heart :
Thou that my household Guardian art,
That dost to me thine aid impart,
And with thy mercy fill'st my cup —
Strengthen the hope within my soul,
Till I in faith may reach the goal !
THE LAUNCH.
A SOUND through old Trimountain went,
A voice to great and small,
That told of feast and merriment,
And welcome kind to all :
And there was gathering in the hall,
And gathering on the strand ;
And many a heart beat anxiously
That morning, on the sand :
For 'tis the morn when ocean tide,
An hundred tongues record,
Shall wed the daughter of the oak —
The mighty forest lord.
They dressed the bride in streamers gay,
Her beauty to enhance ;
And o'er her hung Columbia's stars,
And the tri-fold flag of France ;
They decked her prow with rare device
With wealth of carving good ;
And they girt her with a golden zone,
The maiden of the wood.
The gay tones of the artisan
Fell lightly on the ear,
And sound of vigorous hammer stroke
Rang loudly out and clear ;
And stout arms swayed the ponderous sledge,
While a shout the hills awoke,
As forth to meet the bridegroom flood
Swept the daughter of the oak.
And bending to the jewelled spray
That rose her step to greet,
She dashed aside the vesty waves
That gathered round her feet;
And down her path right gracefully,
The queenly maiden pressed,
Till the royal ocean clasped her form
To his broad and heaving breast.
God guide thee o'er the trackless deep,
My brother — brave and true ;
God speed the good Damascus well,
And shield her daring crew !
MARY E. STEBBIXS.
163
THE ODE OF HAROLD THE VALIANT.
I Min the hills was horn,
Where the skilled bowmen
Send, with unerring shaft,
Death to the foemen.
But I love to steer my bark —
To fear a stranger —
Over the Maelstrom's edge,
Daring the danger ;
And where the mariner
Paleth affrighted,
Over the sunken rocks
I dash on delighted.
The far waters know my keel —
No tide restrains me ;
But ah ! a Russian maid
Coldly disdains me.
Once to Sicilia's isle
Voyaged T, unfearing:
Conflict was on my prow,
Glory was steering.
Where fled the stranger-ship
Wildly before me,
Down, like the hungry hawk,
My vessel bore me ;
We carved on the craven's deck
The red runes of slaughter:
When my bird whets her beak,
Our spears give no quarter !
The far waters know my keel, &c.
Countless, like spears of grain,
Were the warriors of Drontheim,
When like the hurricane
I swept down upon them !
Like chaff beneath the flail
They fell in their numbers —
Their king with the golden hair
I sent to his slumbers.
I love the combat fierce, &c.
Once o'er the Baltic sea
Swift we were dashing ;
Bright on our twenty spears
Sunlight was flashing ;
When through the Skagerack
The storm-wind was driven,
And from our bending mast
The broad sail was riven :
Then, while the angry brine
Foamed like a flagon,
Brim full the yesty rhime
Filled our brown dragon;
But I, with sinewy hand,
Strengthened in slaughter,
Forth from the straining ship
Bailed the dun water :
I love the combat fierce, <fec
Firmly I curb my steed,
As e'er Thracian horseman ;
My hand throws the javelin true,
Pride of the Norseman ;
And the bold skaiter marks,
While his lips quiver,
Where o'er the bending ice
I skim the strong river.
Forth to my rapid oar
The boat swiftly springeth —
Springs like the mettled steed
When the spur stingeth.
Valiant I am in fight,
No fear restrains me, &c,
Saith she, the maiden fair,
The Norsemen are cravens?
I in the Southland gave
A feast to the ravens !
Green lay the sward outspread,
The bright sun was o'er us,
When the strong fighting men
Rushed down before us.
Midway to meet the shock
My fleet courser bore me,
And like Thor's hammer crashed
My strong hand before me !
Left we their maids in tears,
Their city in embers:
The sound of the Viking's spears
The Southland remembers !
I love the combat fierce, &c.
LAY.
A LAY of love ! ask yonder sea
For wealth its waves have closed upon —
A song from stern Thermopylae —
A battle-shout from Marathon !
Look on my brow ! Reveals it naught 1
It hideth deep rememberings,
Enduring as the records wrought
Within the tombs of Egypt's kings!
Take thou the harp — I may not sing —
Awake the Teian lay divine,
Till fire from every glowing string
Shall mingle with the flashing wine!
The Theban lyre but to the sun
Gave forth at morn its answering tone :
So mine but echoed when the one,
One sunlit glance was o'er it thrown.
The Memnon sounds no more ! my lyre —
A veil upon thy strings is flung:
I may not wake the chords of fire —
The words that burn upon my tongue.
Fill high the cup ! I may not sing —
My hands the crowning buds will twine
Pour — till the wreath I o'er it fling
Shall mingle with the rosy wine.
No lay of love ! the lava-stream
Hath left its trace on heart and brain !
No more — no more ! the maddening theme
Will wake the slumbering fires again !
Fling back the shroud on buried years —
Hail, to the ever-blooming hours!
We'll fill Time's glass with ruby tears,
And twine his bald, old brow with flowers!
Fill high ! fill high ! I may not sing —
Strike forth the Teian lay divine,
Till fire from every glowing string
Shall mingle with the flashing wine!
SUSAN R. A. BARNES.
Miss SUSAN REBECCA AYER, now Mrs.
BARNES, is a daughter of the Hon. Richard
H. Aver, of the city of Manchester, in New
Hampshire. Her family has furnished sev
eral names distinguished in public affairs and
in literature. Mr. John Greene, the banker,
of Paris, is her maternal uncle, and the ac
complished scholar and writer, Mr. Nathan
iel Greene, of Boston, is nearly related to her.
Her associations have therefore been preemi
nently favorable to the cultivation of her abil
ities. Her poems are marked by many feli
cities of expression ; and they frequently cc m-
bine a masculine vigor of style with tender
ness and a passionate earnestness of feeling.
Mrs. Barnes now resides with her father, in
Manchester. Her native place is Hooksett,
in the same state.
IMALEE:
AN EASTERN LEGEND
SHRINED in the bosom of the Indian sea,
Where ceaseless Summer smiles perpetually,
A festal glory o'er the tropic thrown,
To other lands and other climes unknown —
By friends untrodden, un profaned by foes,
The bright isle of the Indian god arose.
There waving mid a wilderness of green,
The palm-tree spread its leaf of glossy sheen ;
The tamarind blossom floating on the gale,
Bore breathing odors to the passing sail;
The banyan's broad, interminable shade
A bower of bright, perennial beauty made ;
And from the rock's deep cleft, by Nature nurst,
The tropic's floral wealth in sp'endor burst.
It seemed that Nature, revelling in bloom,
Here claimed exemption from the general doom :
Perpetual verdure o'er the seasons reigned,
Perpetual beauty every sense enchained ;
And here the Indian, Nature's untaught child,
The simple savage of a sunny wild,
Deemed that the spirit whom he worshipped dwelt,
And here at eve in adoration knelt
The Indian maiden — sacred to the power
So deeply reverenced, day's departing hour
The shadows deepen o'er the summer sea,
The breeze is up — the ripple murmurs free ;
A single sail in the dim distance holds
Its onward course, though twilight's darkening folds,
Descending, deepening, veil the lessening prow;
And now it nears the sacred isle, and now
A single, solitary form is seen —
A fearless foot hath pressed the yielding green ! —
And Ima!ee, the dark-browed Indian maid,
At this dim hour, unshrinking, undismayed,
With step that borrows firmness from despair — •
With eye that tells what woman's soul will dare,
When wars the spirit in its prisoned home,
Till Keason yielding, trembles on her throne —
Hath sought the shrine, unmindful of the hour,
To hold dark commune with an unknown power.
Around, a paradise of bloom is shed ;
The cocoa breathes its blossoms o'er her head ;
The scarlet bombex clusters at her feet,
And bloom and fragrance unregarded meet ;
While heavy with the glittering dews of night,
The leaf is greener and the flower more bright.
The maiden hung her wreath upon the shrine,
An offering to the power she deemed divine,
When soft and low a breathing whisper came
That thrilled through every fibre of her frame;
That spirit-voice all tremulous she hears —
" Within thy wreath a withered rose appears !"
" There is — there is — fit emblem of my heart ;
Oh, Power benign ! thine influence impart
To raise, restore, and renovate for me,
That withered flower, or bid its memory flee !
I flung it from me in an idle hour,
In the first dream of conscious maiden power :
That dream is o'er, and I have lived to wake,
To wish my bursting heart indeed might break !"
Again that voice is stealing on her ear,
That spirit-voice, but not in tones of fear ;
It murmurs in a soft, familiar tone,
It thrills he; heart, but why, she dares not own :
Her head is raised, her cheek like sunset glows ;
Again it breathes, " Wilt thou restore the. rose T*
And mid the waving foliage's deepening green
A well remembered form is dimly seen.
That eve it had been hers unmoved to mark
The shadows deepening round her lonely bark ;
A darker shadow brooded o'er her rest,
A deeper desolation veiled her breast ;
And she who had in tearless sadness sought
The haunted shade where godsand demons wrought,
And there unmoved her fearful vigil kept,
Now bowed her head, and like an infant wept.
Abroad once more upon the starlit sea,
The sounding surge is musical to thee ;
The deepening shadows lose their ghastly gloom,
The distant shades are redolent of bloom ;
The sky is cloudless and the air is balm,
The tropic night's pecu'iar, breathing calm — '
Bright Irnalee, 'tis thine once more to own,
Abroad upon the wave — BUT XOT ALOXE.
164
SUSAN R. A. BARNES.
J65
THE ARMY OF THE CROSS.
IT must have been a glorious sight,
And one which to behold
Would stir the sternest spirit's depths,
Those armed bands of old !
The glittering panoply of proof,
The helmet and the shield,
The spear and ponderous battle-axe,
Which only they could wield !
The knightly daring — high resolve,
Engraven on each brow,
The manly form of iron mould —
Methinks I see them now,
As fresh and vividly they rise,
To bid the bosom glow,
As when they burst upon the eye
A thousand years ago !
And 'neath that burning Syrian sun,
Far as the eye can measure,
Prepared to pour like water forth
Their life-blood and their treasure —
Those banded legions pressing on,
The red-cross banner flying,
And thousands seeking 'neath that sign
The glorious need of dying!
Oh holy, pure, and heartfelt zeal,
Misguided though thou be,
There still is something heavenly bright
And beautiful in thee !
And He who judges not as man,
'Tis his alone to try thee,
And thou wilt meet that grace from him
Thy brother would deny thee.
Assailed without, begirt within
By those who hate and fear thee,
Though Danger lurks within thy path,
And Death is busy near thee —
As reckless of continual toil
As if that frame were iron,
A glorious destiny is thine,
Undaunted Coeur de Lion !
God speed thee on thine enterprise,
Lord of the lion heart ;
Go — mid " the rapture of the strife"
Enact thy princely part :
Do battle with the infidel,
And smite his haughty brow,
And plant the standard of the cross
Where waves the crescent now !
The blood of the Plantagenets
Is bounding in thy veins,
The soul of the Plantagenets
Within thy bosom reigns ;
And deeds that breathe of future fame,
And deathless meed assign,
Desires not conquest e'en can tame,
And beauty's smile, are thine !
The story of thy knightly faith,
As ages roll along,
Shall brighten o'er the poet's page,
And wake the minstrel's song :
Ay — to the tale of high emprise,
The daring deed and bold,
The spirit leaps as wildly now
As in those davs of old !
PENITENCE.
THOU art not penitent, although
There rages in thy brain
A scorching madness undefined,
Whose very breath is flame.
Thou art not penitent : alas !
The world hath wounded thee,
And thou in anguish ill concealed
Art fain to turn and flee.
Thou hast in Pleasure's maddening cup —
That cup too deeply quaffed —
The pearl of thy existence thrown,
And drained it at a draught !
Unmourned and unrepressed, behold
Life's energies decline —
Worn, wasted in unholy fires :
And what reward is thine !
The world, once worshipped, spurns thee now
Rejects thee — casts thee hence —
And thou art nursing injured pride,
And dreamst of penitence !
Let but the temptress smile again,
Thou wouldst her influence own,
Forgetting in that charmed embrace
The evil thou hadst known.
Thou bringest not a broken heart
To offer at the throne
Of Him who has in love declared
The broken heart his own.
Thy heart is hard — thou who hast long
The path of error trod ;
Deemst thou that weak and wicked thing
An offering meet for God 1
Go, if thou canst, when Flattery's voice
Is stealing on thine ear
In tones so sweet, an angel might,
Forgetting, turn to hear —
Go, rather list the voice within,
And bow beneath the rod,
And recognise with soul subdued
The chastening of thy God !
Go to the wretch who may have wrought
Irreparable ill,
To thee, or those more deeply dear,
More fondly cherished still ;
Approach, though it may seem like death
To look on him, and live,
And while Revenge is wooing thee,
Say firmly, " I forgive."
Go, when to deep idolatry
Thy heart is darkly prone —
That heart whose steadfast hope should still
Be fixed on God alone :
Go, rend the image from its shrine,
And hurl the idol hence,
And bring it bleeding back to Him r
This — this is penitence I
SARAH HELEN WHITMAN.
(Born 1813).
MRS, WHITMAN is a native of Providence.
Her father., the late Mr. Nicholas Power, a
merchant of that city, was a lineal descend
ant of that Nicholas Power who accompanied
Roger Williams in his banishment, and as
sisted him in establishing the first of govern
ments which claimed no authority over the
conscience. The founder of her family in
Rhode Island appears to have been worthy of
his fraternity with the new Baptist, preaching
the gospel of liberty in the wilderness, and the
Massachusetts General Court made him feel
the weight of its displeasure for advancing so
much faster than itself in civilization.
Miss Power married at an early age Mr.
John Winslow Whitman, a son of Mr. Kil-
born Whitman, an eminent citizen of Mas
sachusetts, and a descendant from Edward
WinslovA, the first governor of Plymouth.
Mr. Whitman's childhood was passed with
his grandfather, Dr. Isaac Winslow, upon
the only estate which at that time remained
by uninterrupted transmission in the families
of the Pilgrims. Mrs. Whitman has pub
lished an interesting account of a visit to the
old mansion, soon after the death of Dr. Wins-
low, while it was still graced with the rich
ly-carved oaken chairs and massive tables
brought over in the May Flower, and its ven
erable walls were decorated with the family
portraits, that have since been deposited in
the halls of the Antiquarian and Historical
Societies of Massachusetts.
Mr. Whitman was graduated at Brown
University, and, after completing his studies
in the law, began to practise in the courts of
Boston, where his fine abilities gave promise
of a brilliant career ; but a lingering illness
s )on compelled him to abandon his profes
sion, and after a brief union his wife re
turned, a widow, to the house of her mother,
iu her native city.
From this period she has devoted her time
chiefly to literary studies. To a knowledge
of the best English authors she has added a
familiarity with the languages and literatures
of (lermany, Italy, and France. Shehasgiv-
nn her most loving attention to the poets,
critic? and philosophers, of the first of these
countries, who have in a larger degree tha
any others formed her own tastes and opin
ions. These are exhibited in several striking
and brilliant papers in the periodicals ; and
particularly in her article on Goethe's Con
versations with Eckermann, in the Boston
Quarterly Review, for January, 1840, and in
her notice of Emerson's Essays, in the Dem
ocratic Review, for June, 1845.
Of the poems of Mrs. Whitman, one enti
tied Hours of Life contains probably the finest
passages, though it is perhaps somewhat too
mystical and metaphysical to be very popular.
This has not been printed. The most care
fully elaborated of her published poems are
three Fairy Ballads — The Golden Ball, The
Sleeping Beauty, and Cinderilla — in the com
position of which she has been assisted by
her sister, Miss Anna Marsh Power. To
these are prefixed the lines of Burns:
" Full oft the Muse, as frugal housewives do,
Gars auld claes look amaist us wool as new."
Nothingcan be finer in its way than the Sleep
ing Beauty of Tennyson, but that brilliant po
et has given only an episode of the beautiful
legend, which is here presented with so much
clearness of narrative, propriety of illustra
tion, and splendor of coloring. Cinderilla is
longer than the Sleeping Beauty, to the som
bre character of which its polished and glow
ing vivacity presents a pleasing contrast.
Mrs. Whitman's poems all betray the lux
uriant delight with which she abandons her
self to her inspirations. The silvery sweet
ness and clearness of her versification, the
varied modulations of emphasis and cadence,
the many nice adaptations of sound to sense,
would alone entitle her poems to lank among
our most exquisite lyrics ; but these subtle
intertwinings and linked harmonies of her
style are ennobled by thoughts full of origi
nality and beauty, and enriched by illustra
tions drawn from a wide range of literary cul
ture. She has not only the artist eye which
sees at a glance all that outline and color can
express, but she gives us the breathing per
fumes, the atmospheric effects, and the spir
itual character, of the scenes that live in her
numbers. lgg
y
SARAH HELEN WHITMAN.
167
THE SLEEPING BEAUTY:
A TALE OF FORESTS AND ENCHANTMENTS DREAR.
// PctiScrM.,.
Si-ter, 'tis the noon of night ! —
Lei us, in tlie web of thought.
We ive the threads of ancient song,
From the realms of F.iiiie.s brought.
Thou shall stain the dusky warp
In niglit.-hiide wet with
t dew:
I, with streaks of morning -old,
Will strike tlie fabric Uiraufb and through. *
WHKHE a lone castle by the sea
Upreared its dark and mouldering pile,
Far seen, with all its frowning towers,
For many and many a weary mile ;
The wild waves beat the castle walls,
And bathed the rock with ceaseless showery
The winds roared fiercely round the pile,
And moaned along its mouldering towers.
Within those wide and echoing halls,
To guard her fro.n a fatal spell,
A maid of noble lineage born
Was doomed in solitude to dwell.
Five fairies graced the infant's birth
With fame and beauty, wealth and power;
The sixth', by one fell stroke, reversed
The lavish splendors of her dower.
Whene'er the orphan's lily hand
A spindle's shining point should pierce,
She swore upon her magic wand,
The maid shou'd sleep a hundred years.
The wild waves beat the east e wall,
And bathed the rock with ceaseless showers ;
Dark, heaving billows plunge and fall
In whitening foam beneath the towers.
There, rocked by winds and lulled by waves,
In youthful grace the maiden grew,
And from her so itary dreams
A sweet and pensive pleasure drew.
Yet often, from her lattice high,
She gazed athwart the gathering night,
To mark the sea-gulls wheeling by,
And longed to follow in their flight.
One winter night, beside the hearth
She sat and watched the smouldering fire,
While now the tempests seemed to lull,
And now the winds rose high and higher —
Strange sounds are heard along the wall,
Dim faces glimmer through the gloom —
And still mysterious voices call,
And shadows flit from room to room — •
Till, bending o'er the dying brands,
She chanced a sudden gleam to see :
She turned the sparkling embers o'er,
And lo ! she finds a golden key !
Lured on, as by an unseen hand,
She roamed the castie o'er and o'er —
Through many a darkling chamber sped,
And many a dusky corridor :
And still, through unknown, winding ways
She wandered on for many an hour,
For gallery still to gallery leads,
Arid tower succeeds to tower.
Oft, wearied with the steep ascent,
She lingered on her lonely way,
And paused beside the pictured walls,
* This is a joint production of Mrs. Whitman and her sis
ter, Miss Tower. ;is before stated.
Their countless wonders to survey.
At length, upon a narrow stair
That wound within a turret high,
She saw a little low-browed door,
And turned, her golden key to try :
Slowly, beneath her trembling hand,
The bolts recede, and, backward flung,
With harsh recoil and sullen clang
The door upon its hinges swung.
There, in a little moonlit room,
She sees a weird and withered crone,
\V ho sat and spun amid the gloom,
And turned her wheel with drowsy drone
With mute amaze and wondering awe,
A passing moment stood the maid,
Then, entering at the narrow door,
More near the mystic task surveyed.
She saw her twine the flaxen fleece,
She saw her draw the flaxen thread,
She viewed the spind'e's shining point,
And, pleased, the novel task surveyed.
A sudden longing seized her breast
To twine the fleece, to turn the wheel :
She stretched her lily hand, and pierced
Her finger with the shining steel !
Slowly her heavy eyelids close,
She feels a drowsy torpor creep
From limb to limb, till every sense
Is locked in an enchanted sleep.
A dreamless slumber, deep as night.
In deathly trance her senses locked
At once through all its massive vaults
And gloomy towers the castle rocked:
The beldame roused her from her lair,
And raised on high a mournful wail —
A shrilly scream that seemed to float
A requiem on the dying gale.
"A hundred years shall pass," she said,
"Ere those blue eyes behold the morn,
Ere these deserted halls and towers
Shall echo to a bugle-horn.
A hundred Norland winters pass,
While drenching rains and drifting snows
Shall beat against the castle walls,
Nor wake thee from thy long repose.
A hundred times the golden grain
Shall wave beneath the harvest moon,
Twelve hundred moons shall wax and wane
Ere yet thine eyes behold the sun !"
She ceased : but still the mystic rhyme
The long-resounding aisles prolong,
And a!I the castle's echoes chime
In answering cadence to her song.
She bore the maiden to her bower,
An ancient chamber wide and low,
Where golden sconces from the wall
A faint and trembling lustre throw ;
A silent chamber, far apart,
Where strange and antique arras hung,
That waved along the mouldering walls,
And in the gusty night wind swung
She laid her on her ivory bed,
And gently smoothed each snowy limb,
Then drew the curtain's dusky fold
To make the entering daylight dim.
168
SARAH HELEN WHITMAN.
P.ART II.
And all around, on every side,
Throughout the castle's precincts wide,
In every bower and hall,
All slept: the warder in the court,
The figures on the arra.* wrought,
The steed within his stall.
No more the watchdog hayed the moon,
The owlet ceased her boding tune,
The raven on his tower,
All hushed in slumber still and deep,
Enthralled in an enchanted sleep,
Await the appointed hour.
A pathless forest, wild and wide,
Engirt the castle's inland side,
And stretched for many a mile ;
So thick its deep, impervious screen,
The castle towers were dimly seen
Above the mouldering pile.
So high the ancient cedars sprung,
So far aloft tlieir branches flung,
So close the covert grew,
No foot its si!ence could invade,
No eye could pierce its depths of shade,
Or see the welkin through.
Yet oft, as from some distant mound
The traveller cast his eyes around,
O'er wold and woodland gray,
.He saw, athwart the glimmering light
Of moonbeams, on a misty night,
A castle far away.
A hundred Norland winters passed,
While drenching rains and drifting snows
Beat loud against the castle walls,
Nor broke the maiden's long repose.
A hundred times on vale and hill
The reapers bound the golden corn —
And now the ancient halls and towers
Reecho to a bugle-horn !
A warrior from a distant land,
With helm and hauberk, spear and brand.
And high, untarnished crest,
By visions of enchantment led,
Hath vowed, before the morning's red,
To break her charmed rest.
From torrid clime beyond the main
He comes the costly prize to gain,
O'er deserts waste and wide.
No dangers daunt, no toils can tire;
With throbbing heart and soul on fire
He seeks his sleeping bride.
He gains the old, enchanted wood,
Where never mortal footsteps trod,
He pierced its tangled gloom ;
A dullness loads the lurid air,
Where baleful swamp-fires gleam and glare,
His pathway to illume.
Weil might the warrior's courage fail,
Well might his lofty spirit quail,
On that enchanted ground ;
No opHii foemun meets him there,
Bui, borne upon the murky air,
Strange horror broods around '
At everv turn nis footsteps sank
Mid tangled boughs and mosses dank,
For long and weary hours —
Till issuing from the dangerous wood,
The castle full before him stood,
With all its flanking towers!
The moon a paly lustre sheds;
Resolved, the grass-grown court he treads,
The g'oomy portal gained —
He crossed the threshold's magic hound,
He paced the hall, where all around
A deathly silence reigned.
No fears his venturous course could stay —
Darkling he groped his dreary way —
Up the wide staircase sprang.
It echoed to his mailed heel;
With clang of arms and clash of steel
The silent chambers rang.
He sees a glimmering taper gleam
Far off, with faint and trembling beam,
Athwart the midnight gloom :
Then first he felt the touch of fear,
As with slow footsteps drawing near,
He gained the lighted room.
And now the waning moon was low,
The perfumed tapers faintly glow,
And, by their dying gleam,
He raised the curtain's dusky fold,
And lo ! his charmed eyes behold
The lady of his dream !
As violets peep from wintry snows,
Slowly her heavy lids unclose,
And gently heaves her breast;
But all unconscious was her gaze,
Her eye with listless languor strays
From brand to plumy crest :
A rising blush begins to dawn
Like that which steals at early morn
Across the eastern sky ;
And slowly, as the morning broke,
The maiden from her trance awoke
Beneath his ardent eye !
As the first kindling sunbeams threw
Their level light athwart the dew,
And tipped the hills with flame,
The silent forest-boughs were stirred
With music, as from bee and bird
A mingling murmur came.
From out its depths of tangled gloom
There came a breath of dewy bloom,
And from the valleys dim
A cloud of fragrant incense stole,
As if each violet breathed its soul
Into that floral hymn.
Loud neighed the steed within his stall,
The cock crowed on the castle wall,
The warder wound his horn ;
The linnet sang in leafy bower,
The swallows, twittering from the tower,
Salute the rosy morn.
But fresher than the rosy morn,
And blither than the bugle-horn,
The maiden's heart doth prove,
Who, as her beaming eyes awake,
Beholds a double morning break —
The dawn of light and love!
SARAH HELEN WHITMAN.
169
LINES WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER.
FAREWELL the forest shade, the twilight grove,
The turfy path with fern and flowers inwove,
Where through long summer days I wandered far,
Till warned of evening by her " folding star."
No more I linger by the fountain's play
Where arching boughs shut out the sultry ray.
Making at noontide hours a dewy gloom [bloom,
O'er the moist marge where weeds and wild flowers
Til! from the western sun a glancing flood
Of arrowy radiance filled the twilight wood,
Glinting athwart each leafy, verdant fold,
And flecking all the turf with drops of gold.
Sweet sang the wild bird on the waving bough
Where cold November winds are wailing now ;
The chirp of insects on the sunny lea,
And the wild music of the wandering bee,
Are silent a 1 — closed is their vesper lay,
Borne by the breeze of autumn far away :
Yet still the withered heath I love to rove,
The bare, brown meadow, and the leafless grove ;
Still love to tread the bleak hill's rocky side,
Where nodding asters wave in purple pride,
Or from its summit listen to the flow
Of the dark waters booming far below.
Still through the tangling, pathless copse I stray
Where sere and rustling leaves obstruct the way,
To find the last pale blossom of the year,
That strangely blooms when a 1 is dark and drear:
The wild, witch hazel, fraught with mystic power
To ban or bless, as sorcery rules the hour.
Then, homeward wending thro' the dusky vale
Where winding rills their evening damps exhale,
Pause by the dark pool in whose sleeping wave
Pale Dian loves her golden locks to lave
In the hushed fountain's heart, serene and cold,
Glassing her glorious image — as of old,
When first she stole upon Endymion's rest,
And his young dreams with heavenly beauty blest.
And thou, " stern ruler of the inverted year,"
Cold, cheerless Winter, hath thy wild career
No sweet, peculiar pleasures for the heart,
That can ideal worth to rudest forms impart]
When, through thy long, dark nights, cold sleet and
Patter and plash against the frosty pane, [rain
Warm curtained from the storm, I love to lie
Wakeful, and listening to the lullaby
Of fitful winds, that, as they rise and fall,
Send hollow murmurs through the echoing hall.
Oft by the blazing hearth at eventide
I love to mark the changing shadows glide
In flickering motion o'er the umbered wall,
Till Slumber's honey dew my senses thrall.
Then, while in dreamy consciousness I lie
'Twixt sleep and waking, fairy Fantasy
Cul's from the golden past a treasured store,
And weaves a dream so sweet, Hope could not ask
for more.
In the cold splendor of a frosty night,
When blazing stars burn with intenser light
Through the blue vault of heaven ; when cold and
clear
The air through which yon tall cliffs rise severe ;
Or when the shrouded earth in solemn trance
Sleeps 'neath the wan moon's melancholy glance,
I love to mark earth's sister planets rise,
And in pale beauty tread the midnight skies,
Where, like lone pilgrims, constant as the night,
They fill their dark urns from the fount of light.
I lo\<* the JBorealis' flames that fly
Fitful and wild athwart the northern sky —
The storied constellation, like a page
Fraught with the wonders of a former age,
Where monsters grim, gorgons, and hydras, rise,
And " gods and heroes blaze along the skies."
Thus Nature's music, various as the hour,
Solemn or sweet, hath ever mystic power
Still to preserve the unperverted heart
Awake to love and beauty — to impart
Treasures of thought and feeling pure and deep,
That aid the doubting soul its heavenward course
to keep.
A STILL DAY IN AUTUMN.
I LOVE to wander through the woodlands hoary
In the soft light of an autumnal day,
When Summer gathers up her robes of glory,
And like a dream of beauty glides away.
How through each loved, familiar path she lingers,
Serenely smiling through the golden mist,
Tinting the wild grape with her dewy fingers
Till the cool emerald turns to amethyst :
Kindling the faint stars of the hazel, shining
To light the gloom of Autumn's mouldering halls
With hoary plumes the clematis entwining
Where o'er the rock her withered garland falls.
Warm lights are on the sleepy uplands waning
Beneath soft clouds along the horizon rolled,
Till the slant sunbeams through their fringes raining
Bathe all the hills in melancholy gold.
The moist windsbreathe of crisped leaves and flowers
In the damp hollows of the woodland sown,
Mingling the freshness of autumnal showers
With spicy airs from cedarn alleys blown.
Beside the brook and on the umbered meadow,
Where yellow fern-tufts fleck the faded ground,
With folded lids beneath their palmy shadow
The gentian nods in dewy slumbers bound.
Upon those soft, fringed lids the bee sits brooding,
Like a fond lover loath to say farewell,
Or with shut wings, through silken folds intruding,
Creeps near her heart his drowsy tale to tell.
The little birds upon the hil'side lonely
Flit noiselessly along from from spray to spray,
Silent as a sweet wandering thought that only
Shows its bright wings and softly glides away.
The scentless flowers in the warm sunlight dream-
Forget to breathe their fullness of delight, [ing,
And through the tranced woods soft airs are stream-
Still as the dewfall of the summer night. [ing,
So, in my heart a sweet, unwonted feeling,
Stirs like the wind in ocean's hollow shell —
Through all its secret chambers sadly stealing,
Yet finds no word its mystic charm to tell.
170
SARAH HELEN WHITMAN.
•'A GREEN AND SILENT SPOT AMONG |
THE HILLS."
IN the soft gloom of summer's balmy eve,
When from the lingering glances of the .5un
The sad Earth turns away her blushing cheek,
Mant'ing its glow in twilight's shadowy .eil,
Oft mid the falling dews I love to stray
Onward and onward through the pleasant fields,
Far up the lilied borders of the stream,
To this "green, silent spot among tl^e hi Is,"
Endeared by thronging memories of the past.
Oft have I lingered on this rustic bridge
To view the limpid waters winding on
Under dim vaulted woods, whose woven boughs
Of beech, and maple, and broad sycamore,
Throw their soft, moving shadows o'er the wave,
While blossoaied vines, dropped to the water's brim,
Hang idly swaying in the summer wind.
The birds that wander through the twilight heaven
Are mirrored far beneath me, and young leaves
That tremble on the birch tree's silver boughs,
In the cool wave reflected, gleam below
Like twinkling stars athwart the verdant gloom.
A sound of rippling waters rises sweet
Amid the silence ; and the western breeze,
Sighing through sedges and low meadow blooms,
Comes wafting gentle though tsfrom Memory's land,
And wakes the long hushed music of the heart.
Oft dewy Spring hath brimmed the brook with
showers ;
Oft hath the long, bright Summer fringed its banks
With breathing blossoms; and the Autumn sun
Shed mellow hues o'er all its wooded shores,
Since first I trod these paths in youth's sweet prime,
With loved ones whom Time's desolating wave
Hath wafted now for ever from my side.
The living stream still lingers on its way
In idle dalliance with the dew lipped flowers
That toss their pretty heads at its caress,
Or trembling listen to its silver voice ;
While through yon rifted boughs the evening star
Is seen above the hilltop, beautiful
As when on many a balmy summer night,
Lapped in sweet dreams, in " holy passion hushed,"
I saw its ray slant through the tremb ing pines.
Long years have passed : and by the unchanging
Bereft and sorrow taught, alone I stand, [stream,
Listening the hollow music of the wind.
Alone — alone ! the stars are far away,
And frequent clouds shut out the summer heaven,
But still the calm Earth keeps her constant course,
And whispershope through all hcrbreathingflowers.
Not all in vain the vision of our youth —
The apocalypse of beauty and of love —
Thr, stag! ike heart of hope : life's mystic dream
The soul shall yet interpret — to our prayer
The, Isis veil be lifted — though we pine
E'en mid the ungathered roses of our youth,
Pierced with strange pangs and longings infinite,
As if earth's fairest flowers served but to wake
Sad, haunting memories of our Eden home,
Not all in vain. Meantime, in patient trust
Rest we on Nature's bosom — from her eye
Serene and still, drinking in faith and love,
To her calm pu'se attempering the heart
That throbs too wildly for ideal bliss.
Oh, gentle mother ! heal me, for I faint
Upon life's arid pathway, and " my feet
On the dark mountains stumble." Near thy heart
In childlike trust, close nestling, let me lie,
And let thy breath fall cool upon my cheek
As in those unworn ages, ere pale Thought
Forestalled life's parent harvest. Give me strength
In generous abandonment of heart
To fo'low wheresoe'er o'er the world's waste
The cloudv pillar movcth, till at last
It guide to p'easant va'es and pastures green
By the sti.l waters of eternal life.
THE WAKING OF THE HEART.
" Pleasure sits in the flower cups, and breathes itselfout in ftagnince,
Rake I.
As the fabled stone into music woke
When the morning sun o'er the marble broke,
So wakes the heart from its stern repose ;
As o'er brow and bosom the spring wind blows,
So it stirs and trembles as each low sigh
Of the breezy south comes murmuring by —
Murmuring by like a voice of love,
Wooing us forth amid flowers to rove,
Breathing of meadow-paths thickly sown
With pearls from the blossoming fruit trees blown,
And of banks that slope to the southern sky
Where languid violets love to lie.
No foliage droops o'er the woodpath now,
No dark vines swinging from bough to bough ;
But a trembling shadow of silvery green
Falls through the young leaf's tender screen,
Like the hue that borders the snowdrop's bell,
Or lines the lid of an Indian shell ;
And a fairy light, like the firefly's glow,
Flickers and fades on the grass below.
There the pale Anemone lifts her eye
To look at the clouds as they wander by,
Or lurks in the shade of a palmy fern
To gather fresh dews in her waxen urn. [breast,
Where the moss lies thick on the brown earth's
The shy little Mayflower weaves her nest,
But the south wind sighs o'er the fragrant loam,
And betrays the path to her woodland home.
Already the green budding birchen spray
Winnows the balm from the breath of May,
And the aspen thrills to a low, sweet tone
From the reedy bugle of Faunus blown.
In the tangled coppice the dwarf oak weaves
Her fringelike b'ossoms and crimson leaves;
The sallows their delicate buds unfold
Into downy feathers bedropped with gold ;
While, thick as the stars in the midnight sky,
In the dark, wet meadows the cowslips lie.
A love tint flushes the wind-flower's cheek,
Rich melodies gush from the violet's beak,
On the rifts of the rock the wild columbines grow,
Their heavy honey-cups bending low —
As a neart which vague, sweet thoughts oppress,
Droops 'neath its burden of happiness. [wells,
There the waters drip from their moss rimmed
With a sound like the tinkling of silver bells,
SARAH HELEN WHITMAN.
171
Or fall with a mellow and flutclike flow
Through the channels and clefts of the rock below.
Soft music gushes in every tone,
And perfume in every breeze is blown ;
The flower in fragrance, the bird in song,
The glittering wave as it glides along —
All breathe the incense of boundless bliss,
The eloquent music of happiness.
And the soul as it sheds o'er the sunbright hour
The unto'd wealth of its mystic dower,
Linked to all nature by chords of love,
Lifted by faith to bright worlds above —
How, with the passion of beauty fraught,
Shall it utter its burden of blissful thought !
Yet sad would the springtime of nature seem
To the soul that wanders mid life's dark dream
Its glory a meteor that sweeps the sky,
A blossom that floats on the storm-wind by,
If it woke no thought of that starry clime
That lies on the desolate shores of Time,
If it nurtured no delicate flowers to blow
On the hills where the palm and the amaranth grow.
A DAY OF THE INDIAN SUMMER.
"Yet one more smile, departing distant sun
Ere o'er the frozen earth the loud winds run
And snows are sifted o'er the meadows baie."— Bryant.
A DAY of golden beauty ! — Through the night
The hoar-frost gathered o'er each leaf and spray
Weaving its filmy network, thin and bright
And shimmering like silver in the ray
Of the soft, sunny morning — turf and tree
Pranked in its de.icate embroidery,
And every withered stump and mossy stone,
With gems encrusted and with seed-pearl sown ;
While in the hedge the frosted berries glow,
The scarlet holly and the purple sloe,
And all is gorgeous, fairy-like and frail,
As the famed gardens of the Arabian tale.
How soft and still the varied landscape lies,
Calmly outspread beneath the smiling skies,
As if the earth in prodigal array
Of gems and broidered robes kept holyday ;
Her harvest yielded and her work all done
Basking in beauty 'neath the autumn sun !
Yet once more through the soft and balmy day
Up the brown hill-side, o'er the sunny brae,
Far let us rove — or, through lone solitudes [woods,"
Where " autumn's smile beams through the yellow
Fondly retracing each sweet, summer haunt
And sylvan pathway — where the sunbeams slant
Through yonder copse, tinging the saffron stars
Of the witch-hazel with their golden bars,
Or, lingering down this dim and shadowy lane
Where still the damp sod wears an emerald stain,
Though ripe brown nuts hang clustering in the
And the rude barberry o'er yon rocky ledge [hedge,
Droops with its pendent corals. When the showers
Of April clothed this winding path with flowers,
Here oft we sought the violet, as it lay
Buried in beds of moss and lichens gray ;
And still the aster greets us as we pass
With her faint smile — among the withered grass
Beside the way, lingering as loath of heart,
Like me, from these sweet solitudes to part.
Now seek we the dank borders of the stream
Where the ta'I fern-tufts shed a ruby gleam
Over the water from their crimsoned plumes,
And clustering near the modest gentian blooms
Lonely around — hallowed by sweetest song,
The last and loveliest of the floral throng.
Yet here we may not linger, for behold.
Where the stream widens, like a sea of gold
Outspreading far before us — all around
Steep wooded heights and sloping uplands bound
The sheltered scene — along the distant shore
Through colored woods the glinting sunbeams pour,
Touching their foliage with a thousand shades
And hues of beauty, as the red light fades
Upon the hill-side 'neath yon floating shroud,
Or, from the silvery edges of the cloud
Pours down a brighter gleam. Gray willows lave
Their pendent branches in the crystal wave,
And slender birch trees o'er its banks incline,
Whose tall, slight stems across the water shine
Like shafts of silver — there the tawny elm,
The fairest subject of the sylvan realm,
The tufted pine tree and the cedar dark,
And the young chestnut, its smooth polished bark
Gleaming like porphyry in the yellow light,
The dark brown oak and the rich maple dight
In robes of scarlet, all are standing there
So still, so cairn in the soft misty air,
That not a leaf is stirring — nor a sound
Startles the deep repose that broods around,
Save when the robin's melancholy song
Is heard from yonder coppice, and along
The sunny side of that low, moss-grown wall
That skirts our path, the cricket's chirping call,
Or, the fond murmur of the drowsy bee
O'er some lone flow'ret on the sunny lea,
And, heard at intervals, a pattering sound
Of ripened acorns rustling to the ground [all,
Through the crisp, withered leaves. — How lonely
How calmly beautiful ! Long shadows fall
More darkly o'er the wave as day declines,
Yet from the west' a deeper glory shines,
While every crested hi 1 and rocky height
Each moment varies in the kindling light
To some new form of beauty — changing through
All shades and colors of the rainbow's hue,
" The last still loveliest" till the gorgeous day
Melts in a flood of golden light away,
And a'l is o'er. Before to-morrow's sun
Cold winds may rise and shrouding shadows dun
Obscure the scene — vet shall these fading hues
Arid fleeting forms their loveliness transfuse
Into the mind — and memory shall burn
The painting in on her enamelled urn
In undecaying colors. When the Ivast
Rages around and snows are gathering fast,
When musing sadly by the twilight hearth
Or lonely wandering through life's crowded path
Its quiet beauty rising through the gloom
Shall sooth the languid spirits and illume
The droo ing fancy — winning back the soul [rrol
To cheei il thoughts through nature's sweet COTJ
172
SARAH HELEN WHITMAN.
THE LOST CHURCH.
FROM THK GERMAN OF UHLAND.
Is yonder dim and pathless wood
Strange sounds are heard at twilight hour,
A.nd peals of solemn music swell
As from some minster's lofty tower,
From age to age those sounds are heard,
Borne on the breeze at twilight hour ;
From age to age no foot hat'.i found
A pathway to the minster's tower !
Late, wandering in that ancient wood,
As onward through the gloom I trod,
From all the woes and wrongs of earth
My soul ascended to its God.
When lo, in the hushed wilderness
I heard, for off, that solemn bell :
Still heavenward as my spirit soared,
Wi der arid sweeter rang the knell.
While thus in holy musings rapt,
My mind from outward sense withdrawn,
Some power had caught me from the earth,
And far into the heavens upborne —
Methought a hundred years had passed
In mystic visions as I lay,
When suddenly the parting clouds
Seemed opening wide and far away.
No midday sun its glory shed,
The stars were shrouded from my sight,
And lo ! majestic o'er my head
A minster shone in solemn light.
High through the lurid heavens it seemed
Aloft on cloudy wings to rise,
Till all its pointed turrets gleamed
Far flaming through the vaulted skies !
The bell with full resounding peal
Rang booming through the rocking tower:
No hand had stirred its iron tongue,
Slow swaying to the storm-wind's power.
My bosom beating like a bark
Dashed by the surging ocean's foam,
I trod with faltering, fearful joy
The mazes of the mighty dome.
A soft light through the oriel streamed
Like summer moonlight's go'den gloom,
Far through the dusky arches gleamed,
And filled with glory all the room.
Pale sculptures of the sainted dead
Seemed waking from their icy thrall,
And many a glory circled head
Smiled sadly from the storied wall.
Low at the altar's foot I knelt,
Transfixed with awe, and dumb with dread,
For blazoned on the vaulted roof
Were heaven's fiercest glories spread.
Vet when I raised my eyes once more,
The vaulted roof itself was gone ;
Wide open was heaven's lofty door,
And every cloudy veil withdrawn !
What visions burst upon my soul,
What joys unutterable there
fn wuves on waves for ever roll
Like music through the pulseless air —
These never mortal tongue may tell :
Let him who fain would prove their power,
Pause when he hears that solemn knell
Float on the breeze at twilight hour.
THE PAST.
" So near— yet oh, how IUr!"— Goetfie'e Helena.
THICK darkness broodeth o'er the world:
The raven pinions of the, Night
Close on her silent bosom furled,
Reflecf no gleam of orient light.
E'en the vild norland fires, that mocked
The faint bloom of the eastern sky,
Now leave me, in close darkness locked,
To night's weird realm of fantasy.
Borne from pa'e shadow-lands remote,
A Morphean music, wildly sweet,
Seems on the starless gloom to float
Like the white pinioned Paraclete.
Softly into my dream it flows,
Then faints into the silence drear,
While from the hollow dark outgrows
The phantom Past, pale gliding near.
The visioned Past — so strangely fair !
So veiled in shadowy, soft regrets,
So steeped in sadness, like the air
That lingers when the daystar sets !
Ah ! could I fold it to my heart,
On its cold lip my kisses press,
This waste of aching life impart
To win it back from nothingness !
I loathe the purple light of dav,
And shun the morning's golden star,
Beside that shadowy form to stray
For ever near, yet oh how far !
Thin as a cloud of summer even,
All beauty from my gaze it bars ;
Shuts out the silver cope of heaven,
And glooms athwart the dying stars.
Cold, sad, and spectral, by my side
It breathes of love's ethereal bloom —
Of bridal memories long affied
To the dread silence of the tomb.
Sweet cloistered memories, that the heart
Shuts close within its chalice cold,
Faint perfumes that no more dispart
From the bruised lily's floral fold.
" My soul is weary of her life ;"
My heart sinks with a slow despair •
The solemn, starlit hours are rife
With fantasy — the noontide glare,
And the cool morning, " fancy free,"
Are false with shadows, for the day
Brings no blithe sense of verity,
Nor wins from twilight thoughts away
Oh, bathe me in the Lethean stream,
And feed me pn the lotus flowers ;
Shut out this false, bewildering gleam,
The dreamlight of departed hours !
The Future can no charm confer,
My heart's deep solitudes to break —
No angel's foot again shall stir
The waters of that silent lake.
SARAH HELEN WHITMAN.
I wander in pale dreams siway,
And shun the morning's golden star,
To follow still that tailing ray
For ever near, yet oh how far !
Then bathe me in the Lel,hean stream,
And feed me on the lotus flowers ;
Nor leave one late arid lingering beam,
One memory of departed hours !
A SEPTEMBER EVENING ON THE BANKS
OF THE MOSHASSUCK.
" Now to the sessions of sweet, silent thought,
1 summon up remembrance of tilings past."
S/talapirv'i Sw.nets.
AGAIX September's golden day
Serenely still, intensely bright,
Fades on the umbered hills away
And melts into the coming night.
Again Moshassuck's silver tide
Reflects each green herb on its side,
Each tasselled wreath and tangling vine,
Whose tendrils o'er its margin twine.
And standing on its velvet shore
Where yesternight with thee I stood,
I trace its devious course once more
Far winding on through vale and wood.
Now glimmering through yon golden mist,
By the last glinting sunbeams kissed,
Now lost where lengthening shadows fall
From hazel copse and moss-fringed wall.
Near where yon rocks the stream inurn
The lonely gentian blossoms still,
Still wave the star-flower and the fern
O'er the soft outline of the hill ;
Wliile far aloft where pine trees throw
Their shade athwart the sunset glow,
Thin vapors cloud the illumined air
And parting da v light lingers there.
But ah, no longer fhou art near
This varied loveliness to see,
And I, though fondly lingering here
To-night can only think on thee —
The flowers thy gentle hand caressed
Still lie un withered on my breast,
And still thy footsteps print the shore
Where thou and I may rove no more.
Again I hear the murmuring fall
Of water from some distant dell,
The beetle's hum, the cricket's call,
And, far away, that evening bell —
Again, again those sounds I hear,
But oh, how desolate and drear
They seem to-night — how like a knell
The music of that evening bell.
Again the new moon in the west,
Scarce seen upon yon golden sky,
Hangs o'er the mountain's purple crest
With one pale planet trembling nigh,
And beautiful her pearly light
As when we blessed its beams last night,
But thou art on the far blue sea,
And I can only think on thee.
SUMMER'S INVITATION TO THE ORPHAN
THE summer skies are darkly blue,
The days are still and bright,
And Evening trails her robes of gold
Through the dim halls of night.
Then, when the little orphan wakes,
A low voice whispers, " Come,
And all day wander at thy will
Beneath my azure dome.
" Beneath my vaulted azure dome,
Through all my flowery lands,
No higher than the lowly thatch
The roval palace stands.
" I '11 fill lay little longing arms
With fruits and wilding flowers,
And tell thee tales of fairy land
In the long twilight hours."
The orphan hears that wooing voice :
A while he softly broods —
Then hastens down the sunny slopes
Into the twilight, woods.
There all things whisper pleasure:
The tree has fruits, the grass has flowers,
And the little birds are singing
In the dim and leafy bowers.
The brook stays him at the crossing
In its waters cool and sweet,
And the pebb'es leap around him
And frolic at his feet.
At night no cruel hostess
Receives him with a frown ;
He sleeps where all the quiet stars
Are ca'mly looking down.
The Moon comes gliding through the tieeh,
And softly stoops to spread
Her dainty silver kirtle
Upon his grassy bed.
The drowsy night wind murmuring
Its quaint old tunes the while,
Till Morning wakes him with a song,
And greets him with a smile.
STANZAS WITH A BRIDAL RINd
THE young Moon hides her virgin heart
Within a ring of gold ;
So doth this little circlet, all
My bosom's love infold,
And tell the tale that from my lips
Seems ever half untold,
Like the rich legend of the east
That never finds a close,
But winds in linked sweetness on
And lengthens as it goes,
Or like this little cycle still
Returneth whence it flows.
And still as in the elfin ring
Where fairies dance by night,
Shall the green places of the heart
Be kept for ever bright,
And hope within this magic round
Still blossom in delight.
174
SARAH HELEN WHI1MAN.
SHE BLOOMS NO MORE.
"Oh jirimavera, gioventu dell' anno,
Itelht miulivdi liori
Tu tiinii ben, ma teco
Xori tnrnani i -ereni
K tortiinati di delle mi gioge." — Gttarini.
to see the summer sun
Come glowing up the sky,
And early pansies, one by one,
Opening the violet eye.
The choral melody of June,
The perfumed breath of heaven,
The dewy morn, the radiant noon,
The lingering light of even —
These, which so charmed my careless heart
In happy days gone by.
A deeper sadness now impart
To Memory's thoughtful eye.
They speak of one who sleeps in death,
Her race untimely o'er —
Who ne'er shall taste Spring's honeyed breath,
Nor see her glories more :
Of one who shared with me in youth
Life's sunshine and its flowers,
And kept unchanged her bosom's truth
Through all its darker hours.
Slip faded when the leaves were sere,
And wailed the autumnal blast;
With all the glories of the year,
From earth her spirit passed.
Again the fair azalia bows
Beneath its snowy crest ;
In yonder hedge the hawthorn blows,
The robin builds her nest ;
The tulips lift their proud tiars,
The lilac waves her plumes,
And peeping through my lattice-bars
The rose-acacia blooms.
Bieathe but one word, ye starry flowers!
One litt'e word to tell,
If in that far off shadow-land
Love and Remembrance dwell.
For she can bloom on earth no more,
Whose early doom I mourn ;
Nor Spring nor Summer can restore
Our flower, untimely shorn.
Now dim as folded vio'ets
Her eyes of dewy light,
And her rosy lips have mournfully
Breathed out their last good-night!
She ne'er shall hear again the song
Of merry birds in spring,
Nor roam the flowery braes among
In the year's young blossoming ;
\or longer in the lingering light
Of summer's eve shall we,
Locked hand in hand, together sit
Beneath the greenwood tree.
T is therefore that I dread to see
The glowing summer sun,
And balmy blossoms on the tree
Unfo'ding one by one.
They speak of hings that once1 have been,
But never more can be :
And earth all decked in smiles again
Is still a waste to rne.
THE MAIDEN'S DREAM.
1 Tlirire hallowed lie tlia
c ln-ek Mill l)lu>he* at tb
thoughts."— Jean Pmil.
beautiful dawn of love when tlie maiden't
conscious —vfetness of lie. ovrn inr.ocent
ASK not if she loves, but look
In the blue depths of her eye,
Where the maiden's spirit seems
Tranced in happy dreams to lie.
All the blisses of her dream,
All she may not, must not speak,
Read them in her clouded eye,
Read them on her conscious cheek.
See that cheek of virgin snow
Damasked with love's rosy bloom ;
Mark the lambent thoughts that glow
Mid her blue eye's tender gloom.
As if in a cool, deep well,
Veiled by shadows of the night,
Slanting through, a starbeam fell,
Filling all its depths with light.
Something mournful and profound
Saddens all her beauty now,
Weds her dark eye to the ground —
Fling's a shadow o'er her brow.
Hath her love-illumined soul
Raised the veil of coming years-
Read upon life's mystic scroll
Its doom of agony and tears 1
Tears of tender sadness fall
From her soft and lovelit eye,
As the night dews heavily
Fall from summer's cloudless sky.
Still she sitteth coyly drooping
Her white lids in virgin pride,
Like a languid lily stooping
Low her folded blooms to hide.
Starting now in soft surprise
From the tangled web of thought,
Lo, her heart a captive lies,
In its own sweet fancies caught
Ah ! bethink thee, maiden yet,
Ere to passion's doom betrayed ;
Hearts where Love his seal has set,
Sorrow's fiercest pangs invade.
Let that young heart s' umber still,
Like a bird within its nest ;
Life can ne'er its dreams fulfil —
Love but yield thee long unrest.
Ah ! in vain the dovelet tries
To break the web of tender thought—
The little heart a captive lies,
In its own sweet fancies caught
SARAH HELEN WHITMAN.
175
KOGER WILLIAMS.
WRITTEN FOR AV ANNIVERSARY OF THE IIHODE
ISLAND HISTORICAL SOCIETY.
Now, wlii'e the echoing cannon's roar
Rocks our i'ar frontal towers,
And bu_>;le blast and trumpet's blare
Float o'er the " Land of Flowers ;"
While our bo d ea^le spreads his wing,
No more in lofty pride,
But sorrowing sinks, as if from Heaven
The ensanguined field to hide:
Turn we from War's bewildering blaze,
And Conquest's choral song,
To the still voice of other days,
Long heard — forgotten long.
Listen to his rich words, intoned
To " songs of lofty cheer,"
Who, in the " howling wilderness,"
When only God could hear,
Breathed not of exile, nor of wrong,
Through the long winter nights,
But uttered, in exulting song,
The soul's unchartered rights.
Who opened wide the guarded doors
Where Conscience reigned alone,
And bade the nations own her laws,
And tremble round her throne ;
Who sought the oracles of God
Within her veiled shrine,
Nor asked the monarch nor the priest
Her sacred laws to sign.
The brave, high heart, that would not yield
Its liberty of thought,
Far o'er the melancholy main,
Through bitter trials brought ;
But, to a double exile doomed,
By Faith's pure guidance led
Through the dark labyrinth of life,
Held fast her golden thread.
Listen ! — the music of his dream
Perchance may linger still
In trie old familiar places
Beneath the emerald hill.
The waveworn rock still breasts the storm
On Seekonk's lonely side,
Where the dusk natives hailed the bark
That bore their gentle guide.
The spring that gushed, arnid the wild,
In music on his ear,
Still pours its waters undefiled,
The fainting heart to cheer.
But the fair cove, that slept so calm-
Beneath o'ershadowing hills,
And bore the pilgrim's evening psalm
Far up its flowery rills —
The tide that parted to receive
The stranger's light canoe,
As if an angel's balmy wing
Had swept its waters blue —
When, to the healing of its wave,
We come in pensive thought,
Through all its pleasant borders
A dreary change is wrought !
The fire-winged courser's breath has swept
Across its cooling tide :
Lo ! where he plants his iron heel,
How fast the wave has dried !
Unlike the fabled Pegasus,
Whose proud hoof, where he trode
Earth's flinty bosom, oped a fount
Whence living waters flowed.
Or, turn we to the green hill's side :
There, with the spring-time showers,
The white thorn, o'er a nameless grave,
Rains its pale, silver flowers.
Yet Memory lingers with the past,
Nor vainly seeks to trace
His footprints on a rock, whence time
Nor tempests can efface ;
Whereon he planted, fast and deep,
The roof tree of a home
Wide as the wings of Love may sweep,
Free as her thoughts may roam ;
Where through all time the saints may dwell
And from pure fountains draw
That peace which passeth human thought,
In liberty and law.
When heavenward, up the silver stair
Of silence drawn, we tread
The visioned mount that looks beyond
The valley of the dead—
Oh, may we gather to our hearts
The deeds our fathers wrought,
And feed the perfumed lamp of Love
In the cool air of Thought.
While Hope shall on her anchoi lean,
May Memory fondly turn,
To wreathe the amaranth and the palm
Around their funeral urn !
HOW SOFTLY COMES THE SUMMER
WIND.
" And henceforth all that once was ffiir,
Grew fairer."
How softly comes the summer wind
At evening, o'er the hill —
For ever murmuring of thee
When busy crowds are still ;
The wayside flowers seem to guess
And whisper of my happiness.
While, in the dusk and dewy hours,
The silent stars above
Seem leaning from their airy towers
To gaze on me in love ;
And clouds of silver wander by,
Like missioned doves athwart the sky
Till Dian lulls the throbbing stars
Into elysian dreams,
And, rippling through my lattice-bai->,
A brooding glory streams
Around me, like the golden shower
That rained through Danae's guarded tower
A low, bewildering melody
Is murmuring in my §ar —
Tones such as in the twilight wood
170
SAKAH HELEN WHITMAN.
The aspen thrills to hear,
When Faunus slumbers on the hill,
And all the tranct-d boughs are still.
The jasmine twines her snowy stars
Into a fairer wreath ;
The lily, through my lattice-bars,
Exhales a sweeter breath;
And, gazing on Night's starry cope,
I dwell with " Beauty, which is Hope."
A SONG OF SPRING.
Jx April's dim and showery nights,
When music melts along the air,
And Memory wakens at the kiss
Of wandering perfumes, faint and rare —
Sweet springtime perfumes, such as won
Proserpina from realms of gloom
1 o bathe her bright locks in the sun,
Or bind them with the pansy's bloom ,
When light winds rift the fragrant bowers
Where orchards shed their floral wreath,
Strewing the turf with starry flowers,
And dropping pearls at every breath ;
When all night long the boughs are stirred
With fitful warblings from the nest,
And the heart flutters like a bird
With its sweet, passionate unrest —
Oh ! then, beloved, I think on thee,
And on that life, so strangely fair,
Ere yet one cloud of memory
Had gathered in hope's golden air.
I think on thee and thy lone grave
On the green hillside far away ;
1 see the wilding flowers that wave
Around thee as the night winds sway ;
And still, though only clouds remain
On life's horizon, cold and drear,
The dream of youth returns again
With the sweet promise of the year.
[ linger ti 1 night's waning stars
Have ceased to tremble through the gloom,
Till through the orient's cloudy bars
I see the rose of morning bloom !
All flushed and radiant with delight,
It opens through earth's stormy skies,
Divine y beautiful and bright
As on the hills of paradise.
Lo ! like a dewdrop on its breast
The morning star of youth and love,
Melting within the rosy east,
Exhales to azure depths above.
My spirit, soaring like a lark,
Would follow on its airy flight,
And, like yon little diamond spark,
Dissolve into the realms of light.
Sweet-missioned star ! thy silver beams
Foretell a fairer life to come,
And through the golden gate of dreams
Allurp the wandering spirit home.
DAVID.
SUGGASTEI) BY A STATUE:
Ar, this is he — the bold and gentle boy,
That in lone pastures by the mountain's side
Guarded his fold, and through the midnight sky
Saw on the blast the God of battles ride ;
Beheld his bannered armies on the height,
And heard their clarion sound through all the stormy
night.
The va'iant boy that o'er the twilight wold
Tracked the dark lion and ensanguined bear;
Following their bloody footsteps from the fold
Far down the gorges to their lonely lair —
This the stout heart, that from the lion's jaw
Back o'er the shuddering waste the bleeding victim
bore.
Though his fair locks lie all unshorn and bare
To the bold toying of the mountain wind,
A conscious glory haunts the o'ershadowing air,
And waits with glittering coil his brows to bind,
While his proud temples bend superbly down,
As if they felt e'en now the burden of a crown.
Though a stern sorrow slumbers in his eyes,
As if his prophet glance foresaw the day
When the dark waters o'er his soul should rise,
And friends and lovers wander far away —
Yet the graced impress of that floral mouth
Breathes of love's golden dream and the voluptuous
south.
Peerless in beauty as the prophet star,
That in the dewy trances of the dawn
Floats o'er the solitary hills afar,
And brings sweet tidings of the lingering morn ;
Or weary at the day-god's loitering wane,
Strikes on the harp of light a soft prelusive strain.
So his wild harp with psaltery and shawm
Awoke the nations in thick darkness furled,
While mystic winds from Gilead's groves of balm
Wafted its sweet hosannas through the world — •
So when the Dayspring from on high he sang,
With joy the ancient hills and lone'y valleys rang.
Ay, this is he — the minstrel, prophet, king,
Before whose arm princes and warriors sank ;
Who dwelt beneath Jehovah's mighty wing,
And from the " river of his pleasures" drank ;
Or through the rent pavilions of the storm
Beheld the cloud of fire that veiled his awful form.
Antl now he stands as when in Elah's vale,
Where warriors set the battle in array,
He met the Titan in his ponderous mail,
Whose haughty chal'enge many a summer's day
Rang through the border hills, whi'e all the host
Of faithless Israel heard and trembled at his boast.
Till the slight stripling from the mountain fold
Stood, all unarmed, amid their sounding shields,
And in his youth's first bloom, devout'y bold,
Dared the grim champion of a thousand fields :
So stands he now, as in Jehovah's might
Glorying, he met the foe and won the immortal fight.
* This fine statue, executed by Thomas F. Hoppin, of
Providence, R. I., represents the young champion of Is
rael a* he stands prepared to attack the Philistine
ELIZABETH OAKES-SMITH
(Born 1806).
THIS accomplished and popular author was
born in a pleasant country town about twelve
miles from the city of Portland, in Maine.
Descended on her father's side from Thomas
Prince, one of the early Puritan governors of
the Plymouth colony, and claiming through
the Oakeses, on her mother's side, the same
early identification with the first European
planters .of our soil, Mrs. OAKES-SMITH may
readily be supposed to have that characteris
tic which is so rarely found among us, Amer
icanism ; and her writings in their depart
ment may be regarded as the genuine expres
sion of §an American mind.
At the early age of sixteen, Miss Prince
was married to Mr. Seba Smith, at that, time
editor of the leading political journal of his
native state, and since then well known to
his countrymen as the original "Jack Down
ing," whose great popularity has been attest
ed by a score of imitators. The embarrassed
affairs of Mr. Smith (who, himself a poet,
partook with a poet's sanguineness of tem
per in that noted attempt to settle the wild
lands of Maine, which proved so disastrous a
speculation to some of the wealthiest families
of the state) first impelled Mrs. Oakes-Smith
to take up her pen to aid in the support of
her children. She had before that period,
indeed, given utterance to her poetic sensi
bilities in several anonymous pieces, which
are still much admired. But a shrinking and
sensitive modesty forbade her appearing as
an author ; and though, in her altered cir
cumstances, when she found that her talents
might be made available, she did not hesitate,
like a true woman, to sacrifice feeling to duty,
yet some of her most beautiful prose writings
still continue to appear under nommes des
plumes, with which her truly feminine spirit
avoids identification.
Seeking expression, yet shrinking from no
toriety ; and with a full share of that respect
for a just fame and appreciation which be
longs to every high-toned mind, yet oppressed
by its shadow when circumstance is the im
pelling motive of publication, the writings of
Mrs. Oakes-Smith might well be supposed to
betray great inequality ; still in her many con
tributions to the magazines, it is remarkable
how few of her pieces display the usual care
lessness and haste of magazine articles. As
an essayist especially , while graceful and live
ly, she is compact and vigorous ; while through
poems, essays, tales, and criticisms, (for her
industrious pen seems equally skilful and hap
py in each of these depatments of literature,)
through all her manifold writings, indeed,
there runs the same beautiful vein of philoso
phy, viz. : that truth and goodness of them
selves impart a holy light to the mind, which
gives it a power tar above mere intellectu
ality ; that the highest order of human in
telligence springs from the moral and not
the reasoning faculties.
One of her most popular poems is The
Acorn, which, thougli inferior in high inspi
ration to The Sinless Child, is by many pre
ferred for its happy play of fancy and proper
finish. Her sonnets, oi which she has writ
ten many, have not been as much admired
as The April Rain, The Brook, and other fu
gitive pieces, which we find in many popu
lar collections. I doubt, indeed, whether they
will ever attain the popularity of these "un-
considered trifles," though they indicate con
centrated poetical power of a very high, pos
sibly of the very highest order. Not so, how
ever, with The Sinless Child. Works of bad
taste will often captivate the uncultivated
many ; works of mere taste as often delight
the cultivated few ; but works of genius ap
peal to the uniA'ersal mind.
The simplicity of diction, and pervading
beauty and elevation of thought, which are
the chief/characteristics of The Sinless Child,
bring it undoubtedly within the last category.
And why do such writings seize at once on
the feelings of every class ? Wherein lies
this power of genius to wake a response in
society ? Is it the force of a high will, fusing
feeble natures, and stamping them for the
moment with an impress of its own ? or i?
it that in every heart, unless thoroughly (:or-
177
178
ELIZABETH O A KES-SMITH.
rupted by the world — in every mind, unless
completely encrusted by cant, there lurks an
inward sense of the simple, the beautiful, and
the true; an instinctive perception of excel
lence which is both more unerring and more
universal than that of mere intellect. Such
is the cheering view of humanity enforced in
The Sinless Child, and the reception of it is
evidence of the truth of the doctrine it so
finely shadows forth. " It is a work," says a
dis riminating critic, " which demands more
in its composition than mere imagination or
intellect could supply :" and I may add that
the writer, in unconsciously picturing the
actual graces of her own mind, has made an
irresistible appeal to the ideal of soul-loveli
ness in the minds of her readers. She comes
before us like the florist in Arabian story,
whose magic vase produced a plant of such
simple, yet perfect beauty, that the multitude
were in raptures from the familiar field as
sociations of childhood which it called forth,
while the skill of the learned alone detected
the unique rarity of the enchanting flower.
An analysis of The Sinless Child will not
be attempted here, but a few passages are
quoted to exhibit its graceful play of fancy
and the pure vein of poetical sentiment by
which it is pervaded. And first, the episode
of the Step-Mother :
You speak of Robert's second wife,
A lofty dame and hold :
I like not her forbiding air,
And forehead high and cold.
The orphans have no cause for grief,
She dare not give it now,
Though nothing hut a ghostly fear
Her heart of pride could bow.
One night the boy his mother called :
They heard him weeping say —
" Sweet mother, kiss poor Eddy's cheek,
And wipe his tears away !"
Red grew the lady's brow with rage,
And yet she feels a strife
Of anger and of terror too,
At thought of that dead wife.
Wild roars the wind, the lights burn blue,
The watch-dog howls with fear ;
Loud neighs the steed from out the stall :
What form is gliding near !
No latch is raised, no step is heard,
But a phantom fills the SJIHOB —
A sheeted spectre from the dead,
With cold and leaden face !
What boots it that no other eye
Beheld the shade appear]
The guilty lady's guilty soul
Beheld it plain and clear !
It slowly glides within the room,
And sadly looks around —
And stooping, kissed her daughter's cheek
With lips tha^ gave no sound !
Then softly on the stepdame's arm
She laid a death-cold hand,
Yet it hath scorched within the flesh
Like to a burning brand ;
And gliding on with noiseless foot,
O'er winding stair and hall,
She nears the chamber where is heard
Her infant's trembling call.
She smoothed the pillow where he lay,
She warmly tucked the bed,
She wiped his tears, and stroked the curls
That clustered round his read.
The child, caressed, unknowing fear,
Hath nestled him to rest ;
The mother folds her wings beside —
The mother from the blest !
It is commonly difficult to select from a po
em of which the parts make one harmonious
whole ; but the history of The Sinless Child
is illustrated all through with cabinet pic
tures which are scarcely less effective when
separated from their series than when com
bined, and the reader will be gratified with a
few of those which best exhibit the author's
manner and feeling :
GUARUIAX ANGELS. ^
With downy pinion they enfold
The heart surcharged with wo,
And fan with balmy wing the eye
Whence floods of sorrow flow ;
They bear, in golden censers up,
That sacred gift, a tear —
By which is registered the griefs
Hearts may have suffered here.
No inward pang, no yearning love
Is lost to human hearts —
No anguish that the spirit feels,
When bright-winged Hope departs.
Though in the mystery of life
Discordant powers prevail ;
That life itself be weariness,
And sympathy may fail :
Yet all becomes a discipline,
To lure us to the sky ;
And angels bear the good it brings
With fostering care on high.
Though human hearts may weary grow,
And sink to toil-spent sleep,
And we are left in solitude
And agony to weep :
Yet they with ministering zeal
The cup of healing bring,
And bear our love and gratitude
Away, on heavenward wing ;
And thus the inner life is wrought,
The blending earth and heaven — •
The love more earnest in its glow
Where much has been forgiven !
ELIZABETH O A KES-SMITH.
179
FIELD KLVES.
The tender violets bent in smiles
To elves that sported nigh,
Tossing the drops of fragrant dew
To scent the evening sky.
They kissed the rose in love and mirth,
And its peta'.s fairer grew ;
A shower of pearly dust they brought,
And o'er the lily threw.
A host flew round the mowing field,
And they were showering down
The cooling spray on the early grass,
Like diamonds o'er it thrown ;
They gemmed each leaf and quivering spear
With pearls of liquid dew,
And bathed the state'y forest tree
Till his robe was fresh and new.
SUPERSTITION".
For oft her mother sought the child
Amid the forest glade,
And marvelled that in darksome glen
So tranquilly she stayed.
For every jagg;'d limb to her
A shadowy semblance hath
Of spectres and distorted shapes,
That frown upon her path,
And mock her with their hideous eyes ;
For when the soul is blind
To freedom, truth, and inward light,
Vague fears debase the mind.
MIDSUMMER.
'T is the summer prime, when the noiseless air
In perfumed chalice lies,
And the bee goes by with a lazy hum,
Beneath the sleeping skies :
When the brook is low, and the ripples bright,
As down the stream they go,
The pebbles are dry on the upper side,
And dark and wet below.
The tree that stood where the soil's athirst,
And the mulleins first appear,
Hath a dry and rusty -colored bark,
And its leaves are curled and sere ;
But the dogwood and the hazel-bush
Have clustered round the brook —
Their roots have stricken deep beneath,
And they have a verdant look.
To the juicy leaf the grasshopper clings,
And he gnaws it like a file ;
The naked stalks are withering by,
Where he has been erewhile.
The cricket hops on the glistering rock,
Or pipes in the faded grass ;
The beetle's wing is folded mute,
Where the steps of the idler pass.
CONSCIENCE.
" Dear mother ! in ourselves is hid
The ho!y spirit-land,
Where Thought, the flaming cherub, stands
With its relentless brand :
We feel the pang when that dread sword
Inscribes the hidden sin,
And turneth everywhere to guard
The paradise within."
FLOWERS.
Each tiny leaf became a scroll
Inscribed with holy truth,
A lesson that around the heart
Shou'd keep the dew of youth ;
Bright missals from angelic throngs
In every by-way left —
How were the earth of glory shorn,
Were it of flowers bereft !
They tremble <tn the Alpine height;
The fissured rock they press ;
The desert wild, with heat and sand,
Shares, too, their blessedness :
And wheresoe'er the weary heart
Turns in its dim despair,
The meek-eyed blossom upward looks,
Inviting it to prayer.
INFANT SLUMBER.
A holy smile was on her lip
Whenever sleep was there;
She slept, as sleeps the blossom, hushed
Amid the silent air.
Recently Mrs. Smith has turned her at
tention to the field which next to the epic is
highest in the domain of literary art, and it
is anticipated by those who have examined
her tragedies that her success as a dramatic
poet will secure for her a fame not promised
by any of her previous achievements. The
Roman Tribute, in five acts, refers to a fa
miliar period in the history of Constantinople
when Theodosius saved the city from being
sacked by paying its price to the victorious
Attila; and the subject suggests some admi
rable contrasts of rude integrity with treach
erous courtesy, of pagan piety with the craft
of a nominal Christianity, still pervaded by
heathen prejudice while uncontrolled by hea
then principle. The play opens with the
spectacle of the frivolous monarch jesting
with his court at their uncouth enemies, and
exulting at the happy thought of buying them
off with money. Then appears Anthemius,
who had been absent, raising levies for the
defence of the city, indignant at the coward
ly peace which makes the Roman tributary
to the Hun, and — a soldier, a statesman, and
a patriot — he determines to retrieve the na
tional honor. Perplexed as to the best means
of doing this, he sees that the whole govern
ment must be recast. Hitherto Theodosius
and his sister had between them sustained
its administration, with Anthemius as prime
minister. The princess had conceived for
him an attachment, and would have thrown
herself and the purple into his arms; but he
has no sympathy with her passion, and is in
tent only upon the emancipation of the em
:so
ELIZABETH OAKES-SMITH.
pire by placing her alone in possession of
the crown, and sacrificing Eudocia, the wife
of Theodosius, who is rapidly growing in the
popular favor. Outraged as a woman a":d a
queen, Pulcheria offers to adjust state affairs
by marrying the barbarian Attila, and An-
themius seemingly accedes to the plan, re
solving to destroy the Hun at the bridal. But
Attila rejects the proposal, and his answer is
thus reported by An hemius to his mistress:
The Hun strade up and down his tent, and swore
The plan was worthy Atti a himself —
Then laid his finger to his brow, arid, thus —
Gods what a progeny might spring such veins con
joined !
But she, like Attila, loves pomp and power —
She, with her line'y trained and haughty blood,
Mine, with a kingly but barbaric flow:
She, keen in mystery of subtle thought,
I, making records with the sword and blood.
Anthemius, influenced entirely by consid
erations of a public nature, at first resolves
upon the destruction of Eudocia, but dis
gusted with the masculine energy and cruel
craft of Pulcheria, as well as subdued by the
gentler virtues of the suffering queen, tries to
save her life and place her upon the throne.
He is persevering in the one purpose of
saving the empire, and to accomplish this,
proceeds to the camp of Attila, with the
design of slaying him in the midst of his
followers ; but the plot is betrayed by Hele
na, who trembles for the life of her lover
Manlius, the friend and companion of An
themius ; and disappointed here, he next
resolves that he shall die at the banquet
prepared by the court, ostensibly in honor
of the barbarian king, but in reality to poison
him. The generous nature of Anthemius is
touched by the hardy simplicity and truthful
magnanimity of the rude warrior, and he
dashes the poisoned chalice aside and dares
him to single combat, in which the brave
and patriotic minister is killed. The fol
lowing extract gives a portion of the last
scene :
Anthemius. Bear with me : we have fallen upon
evil times.
Attila, thou art a soldier, bred in the camp —
For idle pastime hunting the wild boar,
With n.mnd and spear and sound of bugle-horn ;
In wantonness you march to Rome, or here:
Thy palace by the Danube bravely shows
With recking rafters, horns, and skins, and shields.
Altila, (interniptiii'jr him.} And men, stout men,
true, and a thousand strong.
Ant. I do believe them true, and strong, and bold.
B 'hold our blazoned walls — purple and gold !
Wine not from tusk of boar, or horn of deer,
But blushing golden in the golden vase —
Alt. (scornfully.*) A fair picture, proud Roman — •
goodly walls,
With hollow faith — men, curled and perfumed !
Ant. Attila, we have fallen upon evil times:
Listen ! In that rude wooden home of thine [hound
There's not the meanest serf would wrong his
By mixing poison with his food — there 's not —
Att. No, by the eternal gods ! thou 'rt worthy,
Roman, to be one of us.
Ant. (waving his hand.} The most useless, the
most old and outworn beast
That human hand hath trifled with in love,
Receives his death by honorable wound,
JNor dies like a poor reptile in his hole.
[JJimlies lite cupj'i-om him ami draws /its sirot ±
If thou 'rt God's Fate, show thy credentials now .
Honor to thy rude service : thy barbaric faith —
Here stand — thou for thy skin-clad hordes, and I
For Rome !
There is a striking and not unnatural con
trast in the character of the two queens.
Pulcheria is haughty, revengeful, intelligent,
and imaginative. Remorseless in the pur
suit of an object, and unflinching in the most
daring action, she is yet so much a woman
as to love passionately — almost tenderly —
and when evil follows her policy, haunted
in secret by shapes of conscience, which, to
her excited and powerful imagination, take
tangible forms and beset her path, she med
itates the death of Eudocia:
It seemed I heard a dirge, a sound of wo —
Wo, wo ! it said. Was it Eudocia's voice 1
How my heart beats, and its perturbed play
Hath conjured sounds too wildly like its own —
KU DOC I A tut >•,-. unofotrnrd, tnulpromotutce* ,'itr nam s ,///y
Who called ? — the slightest sound grows fearful to
Ay, thus it is, that we in our poor pride fme !
By our earth-serving senses are beguiled ;
Our overweening self shapes any sound
To invocation of our name, and we
Recoil as 'twere a summons from the dead.
Eudocia, (w/%.) The child starts from his in-
nocent pillow
And answers with a smile, for he believes
The angels called him with their sweet rose lips.
[KUDOCIA retires.
Pul. She is gone, and with her my good angel,
I shall be haunted by the blackest fiends.
We have sat embowered in friendly converse :
Avaunt ! what dost thou say, thou gibbering imp
Hark ! I have slumbered with thee until now —
A nameless, shapeless, wingless, couchant thing,
Within the filmy vesture of the soul,
Until thy evil hour evoked me forth.
Oh God ! I dare not pray, and this within :
She lives ! no sheeted ghost hath leave to walk,
And curdle up my blood with its dead stare.
Fearful to sacrifice Eudocia at once, she
entangles her in the meshes of court craft
till she is finally destroyed, and Pulcheria
ELIZABETH OAKES-SMITH.
181
lives to enjoy her state alone. Eudocia is
the reverse of the empress, gentle, affection
ate, and trustful ; the force of her character
is evolved solely through her tenderness for
her child. Beloved by Theodosius, she is
disgusted at his imbecile sensuality, while
her graces have won upon the barbarian heart
of Bleda, the brother of Attila, who would
gladly win her to himself and usurp the
throne. Eudocia is a woman, but one steady
in her devotion to duty. Through this par
tiality of Bleda, Pulcheria is able to work the
downfall of the queen. She has gone to the
house of her father, Leontius, who is a philos
opher, where Bleda has also gone to learn the
usages and philosophy of a more polite people.
Here he is taken ill, and Eudocia, partly in
waywardness and partly in admiration for
his character, insists upon playing the leech.
Pulcheria brings Theodosius, who finds her
kneeling by the couch. She is thrown into
prison ; thence she escapes to the chamber
of her husband, designing to kill him in re
venge for her wrongs, but, overcome with
pity, she turns away, and dies of overwrought
grief in the arms of Anthemius, who has tried
in vain to save her. The following is a part
of her interview with Bleda:
End, Perchance the priest would best become
thy case.
Ble. A priest ! I do abhor the murmuring tribe.
Thine air bespeaks thee gentle as thy sex :
Art thou not one of those, once sacred held
As priestess of a shrine 1 The ancient gods
Whom our forefathers worshipped in their strength,
It is not well to spurn : if such art thou,
A secret will be held most sacred by thee.
End. Nay, mistake me not. [office.
Ble. Thou needst not fear ; I do respect thine
End. It is enough ; thy leech is unknown to thee.
Ble. (starting and taking hold of her veil.} By
the gods — that voice !
End. Our art is learned by dames of gentle blood,
Who sit with patient toil and lips contract,
If so they may relieve one human pang.
The ghastly wound appals us not, nor yet
The raging fury of the moonstruck brain ;
Not wrinkled hags are we, with corded veins,
Croaking with spells the midnight watches through,
But some are fair as she, the vestal mother.
Ble. And such art thou, might I but cast aside
This envious veil ; thy voice is crystalline,
Like water moss-incrusted in its flow ! [befit
End. I will hear thee, prince — such tale as may
A woman's ear.
Ble. (aside.} Now, Bleda, shape thy speech :
Power and love both urge thee to the goal !
[7b EUDOCIA.] I have made my way with trusty
sword and shield,
Nor falsehood known — there is no other crime.
But thou, all passionless, cold, and serene —
Thy truth, like drops preserved in cubes of stone.
For drinking of the gods, can know no change.
Eud. (aside.} Thanks, thanks, for words so high.
Ble. I am sick of love — love of a dame
Whose dovelike eyes have robbed me of all rest.
The world is in the market, and all bid :
Then whv not Bleda, urged less by pride than love ?
I would become a Christian ; the meanest knight
Who doth her service, should his office yield
To me a prince, might I but win one smile.
The fair Eudocia — [talkest treason !
Eud. (starting} Lift not thy aspect there ; thou
Ble. (aside} She listens. I can hear the beating
This can not, must not be a dream ! [of her heart ;
[To EUDOCIA.] Eudocia loathes the sensual, weak
ling, dotard
Emperor of Rome : she should cast the bondage off,
And for herself and child assure the reins, [hence.
End. (aside.} lean not lift my knees, or I would
[To BLKDA.] Thy ta'.e — I must away.
Ble. 'Tis told: I love Eudocia! and thou •
Eud. Thy words are madness ! [Aside.] And yet
they steal
Like dew into the parched bud, and lure
My aching, vacant heart to maddening bliss.
Ble. Eudocia must be saved, and who but Bleda
WTill lift a finger for the rescue 1 ' [dead !
Eud. Nothing can be done ; she and Rome are
Ble. Is human will so impotent and vain ]
Shall we see the wolf with fang upon the lamb,
Nor stir to aid 1 the vulture tear the dove,
And we forbear the shaft 1 No, by the fates !
Eud. (faintly.} Such are God's children: 'tis
their doom, my lord.
Ble. And we are made avengers of their doom.
[EUDOCIA points to a ring on the finger of the J'riiice.
Such ills admit of no redemption — none!
Behold this circlet: lightly worn as 'tis,
It hath not failed to leave its scar behind.
We can not raze the traces of the past ;
Heal up the jagged wound, and leave no seam ;
Tread down the burning ploughshare with our feet>
And feel ourselves unscathed : it is our doom,
And we by patient sufferance keep our souls.
Then follows the surprise of the court, in
which she defends herself with gentle dig
nity, but is disgraced and imprisoned. Pul
cheria visits her and leaves a dagger, and
the rooms ajar ; and she proceeds to the cham
ber of Theodosjus, determined to revenge her
wrongs :
Eud. The stillness of this room is most terrible !
I wish that he would move.
[*SVw lifts the citi^^cr utul appt ouches the c^ntch
Oh, the long, long, eternal sleep ! He stirs ! now—
No, he sleeps. 'Tis pitiful: the jaw adovvn ;
The loose brown flesh impending round the chu»
The eyes, like sunken and encas d balls,
Shut in from speculation ; the thin locks,
All wantoned by the wind, do mock at them !
Helpless and sleeping with his folded hands
[She [urns •IH-U.J
Oh, I am glad to mark there is no line
ELIZABETH CAKES-SMITH.
To win on human love — nor any shows
Nor prints of grand old worth to plead for him ;
No imperial majestv is there —
No lion-like rebuke, uncurbed by s'eep,
To shame me for the deed that I will do.
arm mi i lioi.tt wet- Aim.
A haggard, pal. id, weak, bad man asleep!
Oh, weakness ! thou hast thy power : a pity grows
Too terrible upon me ; it shields thee [locks !
More than love ; it pleads amid these whitening
Then follows her interview with her child,
and final burst of feeling, in which she ex
pires. To her child she says :
Boy, thou wilt be a man anon, and learn
Hard, cruel, manlike ways : thou wilt break hearts,
And think it brave pastime ; thou wilt rule men,
And for the pleasure of thy petty will
Make pools of blood, and top thy pikes with heads ;
Burn cities, and condemn tbe little ones
To bleed and die within their mother's arms !
Child, (weeping.} I will never be so vile ; I will
And merciful as thou hast taught me. [be brave
End. (fondly.} Wilt thou, pretty dear ! Thou
art a brave boy.
Wilt always love me ! Look here into mine eyes :
My own brave boy, when men shall evil speak,
Defame and curse me, wilt thou forget to love ]
Child. Never!
Eud. Never, my brave boy ; and when evil tongues
Shall make thy mother's name a blush, wilt thou,
Mine own dear child, wilt thou believe '?
Child. Never!
Eud. My boy, dost thou remember thy poor dove,
Thy white-winged dove, which the fell hawk pur-
And sprinkled all the marble with his blood 1 [sued,
Child, (sobbing.} My poor, dear dove !
Eud. Ay, thine innocent dove !
Listen, child ! In the long hereafter years,
Wilt thou remember me as that poor dove,
Hawked down and done to death by cruel hands ]
Think this, and God himself will bless thee !
To Anthemius, who urges her to speak the
word, and he will avenge her and raise her
to the throne, she says :
That little word would yawn a gulf beneath my
No more : that ready dagger told its bad tale, [feet.
But I have closed the well of blackness up
Have seen the pitying angel pleading
In the locks of him, the weak and unloved one,
Till my uplifted dagger fell. I wept
Tears of unmingled pity — aching tears!
Empire has long since1 faded from my thought:
The nearer view of an eternal world
Makes my poor, injured name a nothingness;
A mother's love alone survives the wreck.
The reverse of these painful scenes is the
love of Manlius and Helena, in which sim
ple affections and every-day perceptions take
the piace of more profound emotions. The
character of Petrus gives opportunity for
nunint humor as well as efficient advance-
incut of the plot.
Mrs. Oakes-JSmi th's next work was Jacob
Leisler, a Tragedy. Its general character
will be inferred from its title. There is not
perhaps in American history a finer subject
for dramatic illustration than the revolution
in New York in 1680, but hitherto it had
failed of attention from any author of ade
quate abilities. The story is in some re
spects like that of Massaniello, but Leisler
was a gentleman, and was never, like the
Neapolitan, made "drunk with power,"but
was all through the important scenes of his
elevation, administration, and overthrow, a
calm, sagacious, and brave man, equal to
anything within the scope of lawful action
or experience-suggesting probabilities that
might be demanded for the common welfare.
The interest of the play turns largely upon
a striking underplot of domestic life which
much affects and hastens the political de
nouement. The heroine, Elizabeth Howard,
is an original and noble creation, and the vi
cissitudes of her life give occasion for dis
plays of lofty sentiment and careful analysis
of the heart, in scenes where tenderness be
comes pathos, devotion sublimity, and the
illustrations of a passionate fancy kindle up
on the confines of imagination. In England
she has been married to a man named Slough-
ter, from whom, for reasons developed in the
play, she has separated and fled to America,
where she keeps the secret of her early his
tory, and has been for some time happily
married to Leisler, when — he meantime
having become the people's governor — she
hears that tSloughter has arrived on the coast
to demand the seals of the province for the
crown. The following scene here succeeds,
an interview between Elizabeth and an old .
and confidential servant:
ELIZABETH and HANN'AH.
Eliz. Nay, it must be told : he might hear of it
In the market-place, or on the battle-field.
Leave me, my good Hannah.
Hun. Oh, dearest madam ! you are so still —
Eliz. Leave me — it were best. [Exit HANNAH.
How mournfully, how yearningly have I
Longed for thy presence, velvet-footed Peace !
The drudging housewife singing at her toil
I have most envied; and the market dame,
Content with her small gains, and with the chcei
Homely but hearty of the wayside boor,
Provokes me to a spleen. Oh, thou lowly [morn,
Common flesh, braced by the rosy, sweet-breathed
Could yet but see the ruby-girdled heart,
How would ye shrink with dread, and bless the lol
Of honest toil !
I do forget the secret of my grief.
ELIZABETH OAKES-SMITH.
Enter LKISr.F.ll, htirri-d't/.
Leis. Mv sweet wife, them art fit to wear a crown !
I'll give thee what is better: thou dost rule
Him who rules the people by their own free choice.
Look up, dearest ! I am the people's king —
Not king — nay, God forbid, in this great land ! —
But what ails thee, sweet 1 these times oppress thee.
[.Vre* the letter.
A letter ? well, put it by — I 'II none of it ;
I shall be much abroad — shall see thee less — •
So we will seize the present bliss as sure.
How beautiful thou art, and yet so pale,
So very sad ! What is it, love ?
Eliz. The vase of life is rarely garland-crowned.
Leis. Nay, dearest, thou dost think me ambitious,
And tremblest lest the household a 'tar dim.
Eliz. Nay, fill thee wuh great thoughts, and me
forget.
Leis. Thou dost reproach me, love ; it can not be.
Eliz. Dost love me, Leisler ?
Leis. Love thee, Bess ] To doatingness, to mad
ness !
Eliz. Because that I am fair, and true, and good 1
Leis. A very ange, ; nay, better, an all, all wo
man 1
Eliz. Dost love me, Leisler 1
Leis. My own wife, thou knowest I do love thee.
Eliz. I love to hear thee say it : I will remember.
Leis. Thou art ill ; thy hands cold — thy cheek so
pale !
These times are too much for thee.
Eliz. Dost love me, Leisler ]
Leis. Ah, Bess, dear Bess, thou art ill . Dost
love me 1
Eliz. Love thee 1 words have no meaning to my
deep love !
It hath purged me from the weakness of my sex,
And made me new create in thee. Love thee 1
I had not lived until I knew thee !
Love thee 1 Oh Oh Oh ! [ Throws herself into Ids arms.
Leis. My wife, my love, what has moved thee
thus 1
Eliz. Ah, the letter! shall I tell it thee]
Leis. Yes — let me know the worst.
Eliz. The worst 1
Leis. Yes, the worst : it can not touch our love.
Eliz. Touch our love 1
Leis. Nay, the letter
Eliz. I have a friend, who was once exceeding
fair.
They tell me she is wan and changed now.
Poor thing ! she broke the heart of him she loved :
And she did love so wel! — as I love thee ! \weep*.
Leis. My poor Bess ! do not tell it now.
Eliz. I must tell it thee. Well, she was wedded,
A simple child, with childhood's vacant heart.
The days wore on ; the night succeeded day ;
And she did loathe him in her very soul,
And loathed herself to such vile bondage held.
She left him !
Leis. The tale should not be in thy mouth, sweet
wife.
Eliz. She did not love another
Leis. Had she not felt the stirring of a life
Within her own 1 small, pleading, upward hands,
Or piping voice steal to a mother's heart 1
Eliz. Oh, never, never ! I did know her wM! .
She would have died sooner than leave her chi d
To stranger hands; nay, more than this, had lived —
In bitterness had cherished life for it ;
Not all the deadening miseries that wait
On constrained love — not all the tortures felt
By th' recoiling nerve and shrinking sense —
Not all the blight and famine of the soul
Had moved her to forget a mother's love.
Leis. 'Tis a sad tale, Bess ; think no more of it,
Eliz. This is not all. Years passed, and she did
love
Leis. Talk no more of her ; we can but pity.
Eliz. (drawing back.} This is not all : she buried
up the past ;
She loved and was beloved, and held the secret still.
Leis. She was infamously perjured.
Eliz. She married him she loved
Leis. No more of the vile adultress !
Eliz. Leisler, Leisler, I am that woman !
Leis. (tenderly?) Alas ! she has gone mad ! — •
My fond wife !
Eliz. Would to God it were madness, but 'tis
true !
[T^KISf.KH staggers to one side ;
• tlirmes herself at hi
Oh, I have killed thee — killed thee ! Speak to me,
Curse me — stab me to the heart — but look not thus !
See here ! [ Opens her bosom.'] To die by thy hand
were joy indeed ^
I'll kiss the dagger's point, and kiss thy hand —
And forfeit heaven itself, if, ere I die,
Thou wilt but smile and kiss me once again !
There are in this tragedy several scenes
of great power, among which are that in
which Elizabeth poisons her child, and that
in which she discovers herself to the hus
band whom she had abandoned, to plead for
the life of the husband by whom she has her
self been cast off, abhorred and contemned.
The prose writings of Mrs. Oakes-Smith
— for the most part printed in magazines
and other miscellanies — are characterized
by qualities similar to those which mark
her poetry. Her most elaborate performan
ces are The Western Captive, a novel, pub
lished in 1842, and her last work, recently
issued by Putnam, with illustrations by Dar-
ley, entitled The Salamander, a Legend for
Christmas, purporting to be by " Ernest Hel-
fenstein," a name under which she has fre
quently written.
The great and peculiar merits of Mia
Oakes-Smith are so fully illustrated in what
has been remarked in ihe preceding pages,
and in the liberal extracts that are here given
from her works, that little remains to be ad
ded upon the subject. In the drama, in the
sonnet, and in miscellaneous poems of im
agination and fancy, she has vindicated her
right to a place among the first poets of her sex.
184
ELIZABETH () A K E S - S M I T H.
THK ACORN".
LONG years ago, when our headlands hroke
The silent wave below,
And bird-song then the morn awoke
Where towers a city now ;
When the red man saw on every cliff,
Half seen and half in shade,
A tiny form, or a pearly skiff,
That sought the forest glade —
An acorn fell from an old oak-tree,
And lay on the frosty ground :
" Oh, what shall the fate of the acorn be 1"
Was whispered al! around,
By low-toned voices, chiming sweet,
Like a floweret's bell when swung —
And grasshopper steeds were gathering fleet,
And the beetle's hoofs uprung;
For the woodland Fays came sweeping past
In the pale autumnal ray,
Where the forest-leaves were falling fast,
And the acorn quivering lay ;
They came to tell what its fate should be,
Though life was unrevealed ;
For life is a ho'y mystery,
Wrhere'er it is concealed.
They came with gifts that should life bestow:
The dew and the living air —
The bane that should work it deadly wo — •
The little men had there.
In the gray moss-cup was the mildew brought,
The worm in a rose-leaf rolled,
And many things with destruction fraught,
That its doom were quickly told.
But it needed not ; for a bless :d fate
Was the acorn's meant to be :
The spirits of earth should its birth-time wait,
And watch o'er its destiny.
To Hor OF THE SHELL was the task assigned
To bury the acorn deep,
Away from the frost and searching wind,
When they through the forest sweep.
Twas a dainty sight, the small thing's toil,
As. bowed beneath the s\ ade,
He balanced his gossamer wings the while
To peep in the pit he made.
A thimble's depth it was scarcely deep,
When the spade aside he threw,
And rolled the acorn away to sleep
In the hush of dropping dew.
The spring-time came with its fresh, warm air,
And gush of woodland song;
The dew came down, and the rain was there,
And the sunshine rested long:
Then softly the black earth turned aside,
The old leaf arching o'er,
And up, where the last year's leaf was dried,
Came the acorn-shell once more.
With coiled stem, and a pale-green hue,
It looked but a feeble thing;
Then deeply its root abroad it threw,
Its strength from the earth to bring.
The woodland sprites are gathering round,
Rejoiced that the task is done —
That another life from the noisome ground
Is up to the pleasant sun.
The young child passed with a careless tread,
And the germ had well nigh crushed ;
But a spider, launched on her airy thread,
The cheek of the stripling brushed.
He little knew, as he started back,
How the acorn's fate was hung
On the very point in the spider's track
Where the web on his cheek was flung.
The autumn came — it stood alone,
And bowed as the wind passed by —
The wind that uttered its dirgelike moan
In the old oak sere and dry ;
The hollow branches creaked and swayed,
But they bent not to the blast,
For the stout oak-tree, where centuries played,
Was sturdy to the last.
But the sapling had no strength as yet
Such peril to abide,
And a thousand guards were round it set
To evil turn aside.
A hunter boy beheld the shoot,
And an idle prompting grew
To sever the sta'k from the spreading root,
And his knife at once he drew.
His hand was stayed ; he knew not why :
'Twas a presence breathed around —
A pleading from the deep-blue sky,
And up from the teeming ground.
It told of the care that had lavished been
In sunshine and in dew —
Of the many things that had wrought a screen
When peril around it grew.
It to'd of the oak that once had bowed,
As feeble a thing to see ;
But now, when the storm was raging loud,
It wrestled mightily.
There 's a deeper thought on the hunter's brow,
A new love at his heart ;
And he ponders much, as with footsteps slow
He turns him to depart.
Up grew the twig, with a vigor bold,
In the shape of the parent tree,
And the old oak knew that his doom was told,
When the sapling sprang so free.
Then the fierce winds came, and they raging tore
The hollow limbs away ;
And the damp moss crept from the earthy floor
Round the trunk, time worn and gray.
The young oak grew, and proudly grew,
For its roots were deep and strong;
And a shadow broad on the earth it threw,
And the sunshine lingered long
On its glossy leaf, where the flickering light
Was flung to the evening sky ;
And the wild bird sought to its airy height,
And taught her young to fly/
In acorn-time came the truant boy,
With a wild and eager look,
And he marked the tree with a wondering joy,
As the wind the great limbs shook.
ELIZABETH OAKES-SMITH.
185
He looked where the moss on the north side grew,
The gnarled arms outspread,
The solemn shadow the huge tree threw,
As it towered above his head :
Arid vaguc-like fears the boy surround,
In the shadow of that tree ;
So growing up from the darksome ground,
Like a giant mystery.
His heart beats quick to the squirrel's tread
On the withered leaf and dry,
And he lifts not up his awe-struck head
As the eddying wind sweeps by.
All regally the stout oak stood,
In its vigor and its pride ;
A monarch owned in the solemn wood,
With a sceptre spreading wide —
No more in the wintry blast to bow,
Or rock in the summer breeze ;
But draped in green, or starlike snow,
Reign king of the forest trees.
A thousand years it firmly grew,
A thousand blasts defied ;
And, mighty in strength, its broad arms threw
A shadow dense and wide.
Change came to the mighty things of earth —
Old empires passed away ;
Of the generations that had birth,
O Death ! where, where are they 1
Yet fresh and green the brave oak stood,
Nor dreamed it of decay,
Though a thousand times in the autumn wood
Its leaves on the pale earth lay.
It grew where the rocks were bursting out
From the thin and heaving soil — •
Where the ocean's roar and the sailor's shout
Were mingled in wild turmoil ;
Where the far-off sound of the restless deep
Came up with a booming swell ;
And the white foam dashed to the rocky steep,
But it loved the tumult well.
Then its huge limbs creaked in the midnight air,
And joined in the rude uproar ;
For it loved the storm and the lightning's glare,
And the wave-lashed iron shore.
The bleaching bones of the sea-bird's prey
Were heaped on the rocks below ;
And the bald-head eagle, fierce and gray,
Looked off from its topmost bough.
Where the shadow lay on the quiet wave
The light boat often swung,
And the stout ship, saved from the ocean-grave,
Her cable round it flung.
A sound comes down in the forest trees,
And echoing from the hill ;
It floats far off on the summer breeze,
And the shore resounds it shrill.
Lo ! the monarch tree no more shall stand
Like a watchtower of the main — •
A giant mark of a giant land
That may not come again.
The stout old oak! — 'Twas a worthy tree.
And the builder marked it out ;
He smiled its angled limbs to see,
As he measured the trunk about.
Already to him was a gallant bark
Careering the rolling deep,
And in sunshine, calm, or tempest dark,
Her way she will proudly keep.
The chisel clicks, and the hammer rings,
The merry jest goes round ;
While he who longest and loudest sings
Is the stoutest workman found.
With jointed rib and trunnelled plank
The work goes gayly on,
And light-spoke oaths, when the glass they drank,
Are heard till the task is done.
She sits on the stocks, the skeleton ship,
With her oaken ribs all bare,
And the child looks up with parted lip,
As it gathers fuel there :
With brimless hat, the barefoot bov
Looks round with strange amaze,
And dreams of a sailor's life of joy
Are mingling in that gaze.
With graceful waist and carvings brave
The trim hull waits the sea —
She proudly stoops to the crested wave,
While round go the cheerings three.
Her prow swells up from the yesty deep,
Where it plunged in foam and spray:
And the glad waves gathering round her sweep
And buoy her in their play.
Thou wert nobly reared, 0 heart of oak !
In the sound of the ocean roar,
Where the surging wave o'er the rough rock broke,
And bellowed along the shore :
And how wilt thou in the storm rejoice,
With the wind through spar and shroud,
To hear a sound like the forest voice,
When the blast was raging loud !
With snow-white sail, and streamer gay,
She sits like an ocean-sprite,
Careering on her trackless way,
In sunshine or midnight :
Her course is laid with fearless skill,
For brave hearts man the helm ;
And the joyous winds her canvass fill :
Shall the wave the stout ship whelm 1
On, on she goes, where icebergs roll,
Like floating cities by ;
Where meteors flash by the northern pole,
And the merry dancers fly ;
Where the glittering light is backward flung
From icy tower and dome,
And the frozen shrouds are gayly hung
With gems from the ocean foam.
On the Birman sea was her shadow cast,
As it lay like molten gold,
And her pendent shroud and towering mast
Seemed twice on the waters told.
The idle canvass slowly swung
As the spicy breeze went by,
And strange, rare music around her rung
From the palm-tree growing nigh-
180
ELIZABETH OAKES-SMITH.
^n, gallant ship, thou didst bear with thee
The gay and the hreaking heart,
And weeping eyes looked out to see
Thy white-spread sails depart.
And when the rattling casement told
Of many a perilled ship,
The anxious wife her babes would fold,
And pray with trembling lip.
The petrel whee'ed in her stormy flight ,
The wind piped shrill and high ;
On the topmast sat a pale-blue light,
That flickered not to the eye :
The black cloud came like a banner down,
And down came the shrieking blast ;
The quivering ship on her beams is thrown,
And gone are helm and mast!
Helmless, but on before the gale,
She ploughs the deep-troughed wave :
A gurgling sound — a phrensied wail —
And the ship hath found a grave !
And thus is the fate of the acorn told,
That fell from the old oak-tree,
And HE OF THE SHELL in the frosty mould
Preserved for its destiny.
THE DROWNED MARINER.
A MAKIXER sat on the shrouds one night,
The wind was piping free ;
Now bright, now dimmed was the moonlight pale,
And the phosphor gleamed in the wake of the whale,
As he floundered in the sea ;
The scud was flying athwart the sky,
The gathering winds went whistling by,
And the wave as it towered, then fell hi spray,
Looked an emerald wall in the moonlight ray.
The mariner swayed and rocked on the mast,
But the tumult pleased him well;
Down the yawning wave his eye he cast,
And the monsters watched as they hurried past,
Or lightly rose and fell ;
For their broad, damp fins were under the tide,
And they lashed as they passed the vessel's side,
And their filmy eyes, all huge and grim,
Glared fiercely up, and they glared at him.
Now freshens the gale, and the brave ship goes
Like an uncurbed steed along,
A sheet of flame is the spray she throws,
As her gallant prow the water ploughs
But the ship is fleet and strong:
The topsails are reefed and the sails are furled,
And onward she sweeps o'er the watery world,
And dippeth her spars in the surging flood ;
But fhrre came no chill to the mariner's blood.
Wildly she rocks, but he swinge th at ease,
And holds him by the shroud ;
And as she careens to the crowding breeze,
The gaping deep the mariner sees,
And the surging heareth loud.
Was that a face, looking up at him,
With its pallid cheek and its cold eyes dim ?
Did it beckon him down ] did it call his name ]
Now rolleth the ship the way whence it came.
The mariner looked, and he saw with dread,
A face he knew too well ;
And the cold eyes glared, the eyes of the dead,
And" its long hair out on the wave was spread,
Was there a ta'e to tell ?
The stout ship rocked with a reeling speed,
And the mariner groaned, as well he need,
For ever down, as she plunged on her side,
The dead face gleamed from the briny tide.
Bethink thee, manner, well of the past,
A voice ',alls loud for thee —
There 's a stifled prayer, the first, the last,
The plunging ship on her beam is cast,
Oh, where shall thy burial be ?
Bethink thee of oaths that were lightly spoken,
Bethink thee of vows that were lightly broken,
Bethink thee of all that is dear to thee —
For thou art alone on the raging sea :
Alone in the dark, alone on the wave,
To buffet the storm alone —
To struggle aghast at thy watery grave,
To struggle, and feel there is none to sa\e
God shield thee, helpless one !
The stout limbs yield, for their strength is past,
The tremb'ing hands on the deep are cast,
The white brow gleams a moment more,
Then slowly sinks — the struggle is o'er.
Down, down where the storm is hushed to sleep,
Where the sea its dirge shall swell,
Where the amber drops for thee shall weep,
And the rose-lipped shell her music keep,
There thou shalt slumber well.
The gern and the pearl lie heaped at thy side,
They fell from the neck of the beautiful bride,
From the strong man's lrand,from the maiden's brow,
As they slowly sunk to the wave below.
A peopled home is the ocean bed,
The mother and child are there —
j The fervent youth and the hoary head,
The maid, with her floating locks outspread,
The babe with its silken hair,
As the water moveth they lightly sway,
And the tranquil lights on their features play ;
And there is each cherished and beautiful form,
Away from decay, and away from the storm.
TO THE HUDSON.
OH, river ! gently as a wayward child
I saw thee mifl the moonlight hills at rest ;
Capricious thing, with thine own beauty wild,
How didst thou still the throbbings of thy breast!
Rude headlands were about thee, stooping round,
As if amid the hills to hold thy stav ;
But thou didst hear the far-off ocean sound,
Inviting thee from hill and vale away,
To mingle thy deep waters with its own ;
And, at that voice, thy steps did onward glide,
Onward from echoing hill and valley lone.
Like thine, oh, be my course — nor turned aside,
While listing to the soundings of a land,
That like the ocean call invites me to its strand.
ELIZABETH OAKES-SMITH.
is:
SONNETS.
I. POEST.
WITH no fond, sickly thirst for fame, I kneel
0 goddess of the high-born art, to thee ;
Not unto thee with semblance of a zeal
1 come, 0 pure and heaven-eyed Poesy !
Thou art to me a spirit and a love,
Felt ever from the time when first the earth,
In its green beauty, and the sky above
Informed my soul with joy too deep for mirth.
I was a child of thine before my tongue
Could lisp its infant utterance unto thee,
And now, albeit from my harp are flung
Discordant numbers, and the song may be
That which I would not, yet I know that thou
The offering wilt not spurn,while th us to thee I bow.
II. THE BAUD.
IT can not be, the baffled heart, in vain,
May seek, amid the crowd, its throbs to hide ;
Ten thousand other kindred pangs may bide,
Yet not the less will our own griefs complain.
Chained to our rock, the vulture's gory stain
And tearing beak is every moment rife,
Renewing pangs that end but with our life.
Thence bursteth forth the gushing voice of song,
The- soul's deep anguish thence an utterance finds,
Appealing to all hearts : and human minds
Bow down in awe : thence doth the Bard belong
Unto all times : the laurel steeped in wrong
Unsought is his : his soul demanded bread, [stead.
And ye, charmed with the voice, gave but a stone in-
^
III. AX IXCIDEXT.
A SIMPLE thing, yet chancing as it did,
When life was bright with its illusive dreams,
A pledge and promise seemed beneath it hid ;
The ocean lay before me, tinged with beams
That lingering draped the west, a wavering stir,
And at my feet down fell a worn, gray quill ;
An eagle, high above the darkling fir,
With steady flight, seemed there to take his fill
Of that pure ether breathed by him alone.
^ O nob:e bird ! why didst thou loose for me
Thy eagle plume ? still unessayed, unknown
Must be that pathway fearless winged by thee ;
I ask it not, no lofty flight be mine,
I would not soar like thee, in loneliness to pine !
IV. THE UXATTA1XED.
Axn is this life? and are we born for this 1
To follow phantoms that elude the grasp,
Or whatsoe'er secured, within our clasp,
To withering lie, as if each earth'y kiss [meet.
Were doomed Death's shuddering touch alone to
O Life ! hast thou reserved no cup of bliss ?
Must still THE UVATTAIXEI) beguile our feet?
The UXATTAIXEII with yearnings fill the breast,
That rob, for ay, the spirit of its rest ?
Yes, this is Life ; and everywhere we meet,
Not victor crowns, but wailings of defeat ;
^ et faint thou not, thou dost apply a test
That shall incite thee onward, upward still,
The present can not sate nor e'er thy spirit fill.
V. THE WIFE.
ALL day, like some sweet bird, content to sing
In its small cage, she moveth to and fro —
And ever and anon will upward spring
To her sweet lips, fresh from the fount below,
The murmured melody of pleasant thought,
Unconscious uttered, gentle-toned and low.
Light household duties, evermore inwrought
With placid fancies of one trusting heart
That lives but in her smile, and turns
From life's cold seeming and the busy mart,
With tenderness, that heavenward ever yearns
To be refreshed where one pure altar burns.
Shut out from hence, the mockery of life, [wife.
Thus liveth she content, the meek, fond, trusting
VI. RELIGIOX.
ALOXE, yet not alone, the heart doth brood
With a sad fondness o'er its hidden grief ;
B -oods with a miser's joy,' wherein relief
Jomes with a semblance of its own quaint mood.
How many hearts this point of life have passed !
And some a train of light behind have cast,
To show us what hath been, and what may be ;
That thus have suffered all the wise and good,
Thus wept and prayed, thus struggled and were free.
So doth the pilot, trackless through the deep,
Unswerving by the stars his reckoning keep,
He moves a highway not untried before,
And thence he courage gains, and joy doth reap,
Unfaltering lays his course, and leaves behind the
shore.
VI T. THE DREAM.
I niiKAMKi) last night, that I myself did lay
Within the grave, and after stood and wept,
My spirit sorrowed where its ashes s'ept !
'T was a strange dream, and yet methinks it may
Prefigure that which is akin to truth.
How sorrow we o'er perished dreams of youth,
High hopes and aspirations doomed to be
Crushed and o'ermastered by earth's destiny !
Fame, that the spirit loathing turns to ruth—
And that deluding faith so loath to part,
That earth will shrine for us one kindred heart !
Oh, 'tis the ashes of such things that wring
Tears from the eyes — hopes like to these depart,
And we bow down in dread, o'ershadowed by
Death's wing !
VIII. WAYFARERS.
EARTH careth for her own — the fox lies down
In her warm bosom, and it asks no more.
The bird, content, broods in its lowly nest,
Or its fine essence stirred, with wing outflown,
Circ'es in airy rounds to heaven's own door,
And folds again its plume upon her breast,
Ye, too, for whom her palaces arise,
Whose Ty rian vestments sweep the kindred ground,
Whose golden chalice Ivy-Bacchus dies,
She, kindly Mother, liveth in your eyes,
And no strange anguish may your lives astound.
But ye, O pale lone watchers for the true,
She knoweth not. In Her ve have not found
Place for your stricken head, wet with the mitl
night dew.
IS8
ELIZABETH O ARE S-SMITH.
IX. HELOISE TO ARELARI).
MUST I not love thee ] when the heart would leap
With all its stirring pulses unto thee,
Must it be staved 1 — is not the spirit free 7
Can human bonds or bars its essence keep ?
Or drills and banes hold love in deathful sleep!
Love thee I. must — yet I content will be,
Like the pale victim, who, on bended knee,
Presents the cha ice which his blood must steep,
And prostrate on the altar falls to die :
So let me knee! — a guilt e*s votary sink —
Prayer o.i rny lip, and love within my heart:
Thus from these willing eyes recede the sky —
Thus let these sighs my ebbing life-blood drink,
May I but love thee still, but feel how dear thou art !
X. IIKLOISE TO ABELAttD, (CONTINUED.)
shouldst thou hold thy tenderness aside
From all thv lavishmcnt of other gifts ]
As if thou wouldst resort to means and shifts,
Thy dearest, noblest attribute to hide
From her, thy soul's sequestered, nun-made bride 1
Thou hast enshrined her, like the star that drifts
Alone in space — the worshipper who lifts
His adoration, stayetli not the tide [thou 1
Of his full heart — ah ! wherefore then shouldst
We do our natures unto those attune,
Most prodigal of greatness — and we feel
That they do us with nobleness endow,
As did the lavish moon Endyrnion : [ous zeal 1
Then wherefore starve the heart with thrift of jeal-
XI. DESPONDENCY.
WURN thou didst leave me Hope, why didst thou
In place of thy sweet presence, leave Despair, ("not,
With her grim visage and disordered hair ?
The past, the future, then had been forgot —
The soul, concentred on its blasted lot,
Had rested mute and desolate of care —
Had ceased to question where its treasures were,
And roamed no more the melancholy spot :
But now, too much remembering of the past ;
So huge the weight of gloom around me spread,
That I, like one within a charnel cast,
Hear but the dirges ringing for the dead —
Feel all the pangs of life, and thought, arid breath,
Yet walk I all the time with hand in hand of Death.
XII. LOVE.
THERE may be death or peril — grief and shame —
Cold, hollow human bonds ; and stony walls,
And stonier hearts ; and solemn hackwood calls,
Heard in the midnight silence, when our name
< 'omes to the startled car in cadenced blame :
Friends may fall, as the dried leaf in autumn falls:
We, in blanched moonlight stand, in desolate halls,
H.-arinjf dead branches grate the window frame,
Under the pressure of the winter wind —
Y el Love will dare a'l these, and more : ah ! more
Outlive the changed look, wrench back despair,
Knd in his dim, deserted chambers find
The wherewithal to comfort — to restore — [there.
God's manna find left by Archangel footprints
XIII. "LOOK NOT BEHIND THEE.
MKSEKMED, as I did walk a crystal wall,
Translucent in the hue of rosy morn,
And saw Eurydice, from Orpheus torn,
Lift her white brow from out its heavy pall,
With sweet lips echoing his melodious call,
And following him, love-led and music-borne,
A sharp and broken cry — and she was gone :
Thou fairest grief — thou saddest tvpe of all
Our sorrowing kind, oh, lost Eurydice !
Thy deathful cry thrilled in mine every vein,
When Orpheus turned him back, thus losing thee '
His broken lute and melancholy plain
All time prolongs — the still unceasing flow
Of unavailing grief and a regretful wo.
XIV. CHAIUTT, IN DESPAIR OF JUSTICE.
OUTWEARIED with the littleness and spite —
The falsehood and the treachery of men,
I cried, " Give me but justice" — thinking then
I meekly craved a common boon, which might
Most easily be granted : — soon the light
Of deeper truth grew on my wandering ken,
(Escaped the baneful damps of stagnant fen,)
And then I saw that, in my pride bedight,
I claimed from weak-eyed man the gift of Heaven :
God's own great vested right ! — and I grew calm,
W7ith folded hands, like stone to Patience given,
And pityings of meek love-distilling balm —
And now I wait in hopeful trust to be
All known to God, and ask of man sweet charity
XV. THE GREAT AI3I.
EARTH beareth many pangs of guilt and wrong,
Hunger, and chains, and nakedness, all cry
From out the ground to Him whose searching eye
Sees blood, like slinking serpents, steal along
The dusty way, rank grass, and flowers among
Histhedread voice," Where is thy brother?" Why
Sit we here, weaving our common griefs to song,
When that eternal call forth bids us fly
From self, and wake to human good 1 — the near.
The humble it may be, yet God-appointed :
If greatly girded, go — unknowing fear —
With solemn trust, thou missioned and anointed.
Oh, glorious task ! made free from petty strife,
Thy Truth become an Act — thy Aspiration, Life.
XVI. MIDNIGHT.
AFAH in this deep dell, by the seashore,
So, resteth all things from the summer heat,
That I the Naiads hear from limber feet
Let fall the crystal as in days of yore :
Old sea-gods lean upon the rock, and pour
The waves adown ; the light-winged zephyrs greet
The tittering nymphs, that from their green retreat
With pearl-shells play and listen to their roar:
Endymion sure on yonder headland sleeps,
Where Dian's veil floats out a silver sheen —
And large-eyed Pan amid the lotus peeps,
Where glea?ns an ivory arm the leaves between.
Nor stirs a restless hoof, lest his bit; heart,
O'erfilled with love, should si umbering Echo start.
ELIZABETH OAKES-SMITH.
189
XVII. JEALOUSY.
ALAS ! for he who loves too oft may be
Like one who- hath a precious treasure sealed,
Whereto another hath obtained the key :
And he, poor soul ! who there his a'.l concealed,
Lives blindly on, nor knows that mite by mite
It dvvindleth from his grasp ; or if a thought
That something hath been lost his mind affright.
•He puts it by as evil fancy wrought.
Yet will there sometimes come -a ghostly dread,
From which the soul recoils ; but he will sleep —
Av, sleep — and when he wakes, all, all is fled.
Thus we may " garner up" our hearts, and keep
A more than human trust, and yet be left
Despoiled of all — of hope, of faith, of love bereft !
ECCK HOMO.
THE WORSHIP AND THE WAY.
WHETIE the great woods their dusky shadows spread,
Where the co'.d mountain-top in silence stood —
What time the stars hung dark. ing overhead,
Or came the red sun forth a beaming god,
There, dimly groping, yet for truth athirst,
Before the heavenly hosts in worship first,
Ecce Homo !
The sylvan god hid in the rude, worn stone,
The fire with wreaths of smoke to heaven ascending
From out the consecrated dell, are gone ;
The Parsee on the mount no more is bending,
But in a shapely temple, with the rites
Of priest, and victim, and the burning lights,
Ecce Homo !
Ah, struggling soul ! crushed and impeded, yet
In form alone thou couldst riot rest content ;
These were but symbols : thou couldst not forget
Truth dwells within the veil, which must be rent ;
And once again, mid earthquakes, doubt, and dread,
And darkness o'er the earth, and o'er all worship
spread — Ecce Homo !
Where hath the lowly been, to point the path
To all the strugglers for the good and true 1
In peril and in scorn from earthborn wrath,
His locks all covered with tae midnight dew — •
The sweat of b.ood, the agony, the prayer —
Oh, dark Gethsemane, behold him there !
Ecce Homo !
Wayworn with toil, and sorrowful of heart,
Amid earth's multitude despised and poor,
WTho, save their trust in God, have little art —
Their strength the strength that teaches to endure :
To comfort such, and in the outcast's ear
Great words to whisper of consoling cheer —
Ecce Homo !
WThere is the Priest, and where the altar now *
Where is the reeking blood., and victim slain 1
Tranquil is upward raised a heavenly brow —
" Do this in love until I come again" —
And mystic wine poured forth, and lowly bread,
Earth's best and common gifts before him spread,
Ecce Homo !
Not as the martyr dies — with the great stamp
Of Truth upon his brow, him to uphold ;
But o'er the suffering forehead, cold and lamp,
Th A record of imposture three times told —
The outcast and the felon side by side —
" Without the walls," where all men may deride—
Ecce Homo !
Thou fainting bearer of the thorn and cross,
Despised, rejected of thy brother here —
Sighing for lack of bread — the wayside moss
Thine only pillow — cast aside thy fear !
Fill up thy human heart unto the brim —
Let the thorn pierce thee, as it pierced Him —
Ecce Homo!
ODE TO SAPPHO.
BRIGHT, glowing Sappho ! child of love and song !
Adown the blueness of long-distant years
Beams forth thy glorious shape, and steal along
Thy melting tones, beguiling us to tears.
Thou priestess of great hearts,
Thrilled with the secret fire
By which a god imparts
The anguish of desire —
For meaner souls be mean content —
Thine was a higher element.
Over Leucadia's rock thou leanest yet,
With thy wild song, and all thy locks outspread ;
The stars are in thine eyes, the moon hath set —
The night dew falls upon thy radiant head ;
And thy resounding lyre —
Ah ! not so wildly sway :
Thy soulful lips inspire
And steal our hearts away !
Swanlike and beautiful, thy dirge
Still moans along the ^Egean surge.
No unrequited love filled thy lone heart,
But thine infinitude did on thee weigh,
And all the wildness of despair impart,
Stealing the down from Hope's own wing away.
Couldst thou not suffer on,
Bearing the direful pang,
While thy melodious tone
Through wondering cities rang?
Couldst thou not bear thy godlike grief]
In godlike utterance find relief!
Devotion, fervor, might upon thee wait :
But what were these to thine 1 all cold and chill,
And left thy burning heart but desolate ;
Thy wondrou? beauty with despair might fill
The worshipper who bent
Entranced at thy feet :
Too affluent the dower lent
Where song and beauty meet !
Consumed by a Promethean fire
Wert thou, O daughter .of the lyre !
Alone, above Leucadia's wave art thou,
Most beautiful, most gifted, yet alone !
Ah ! what to thee the crown from Pindar's brow e
What the loud plaudit and the garlands tluown
By the enraptured throng,
When thou in matchless grace
Didst move with lyre and song,
And monarchs gave thee place 1
What hast thou left, proud one ? what token ?
Alas ! a lyre and heart — uotli broken !
ELIZABETH OAKES-SMTTH.
LOVE DEAD.
Th* lady sent liim an ima.se of Cupid, one wins veiling Ins face. He
was pit-use,! tli>-rt-at, thinkin- it to be Low >|.-.-piii^, and betokened
'lie tenderm»M ot' (lie sentiment. He looked again, and caw it
Love dead, and laid upon his biet.
THIS morn with trembling I awoke,
Just as the dawn my slumber broke :
Flapping came a heavy wing sounding pinions o'er
my head,
Beating down the b'.essed air with a weight of chil
ling dread ;
Felt I then the presence of a doom
That an Evil occupied the room :
And I dared not round the bower,
Chi.ly in the grayish dawning —
Dared not face the evil power,
With its voice of inward warning.
Vain with weakness we may palter —
Vainly may the fond heart falter:
Came there then upon my soul, dropping down
like leaden weight,
Burning pang or freezing pang, which I know not,
'twas so great !
Life hath its moments black unnumbered,
I knew not if mine eyes had slumbered,
Yet I little thought such pain
Ever to have known again :
Love dies, too, when Faith is dead —
Yesternight Faith perished !
I knew that Love could never change -
That Love should die seems yet more strange ;
Lifting up the downy veil, screening Love within
my heart,
Beating there as beat my pulse, moving like my
self a part —
I had kept him cherished there so deep,
Heart-rocked kept him in his balmy sleep,
That till now I never knew
How his fibres round me grew —
Could not know how deep the sorrow
Where Hope bringeth no to-morrow.
I struggled, knowing we must part ;
I grieved to lift him from my heart:
Grieving much and struggling much, forth I brought
him sorrowing ;
Drooping hung his fainting head, all adown his
dainty wing !
Shrieked I with a wild and dark surprise,
For I saw the marble in Love's eyes ;
Yet I hoped his soul would wait
^s he oft had waited there,
Hovering, though at heaven's gate —
Could he leave me to despair ]
Unfolded they the crystal door,
W'here Love shall languish never more.
"VV eeping Love, thy days are o'er. Lo ! I lay thee
on thy bier,
Wiping thus from thy dead cheek every vestige of
a tear.
Love has perished : hist, hist, how they tell,
Beating pulse of mine, his funeral knell !
Lo\e is dead — ay, dead and gone!
Why should I be living on ? —
Why be in this chamber sitting,
With but phantoms round me flitting?
STANZAS.
I PASS before them cold and lone;
I ask no smile, I claim no tear;
And like some chiselled form of stone,
Doomed none save mocking words to hear,
To meet no eyes with Love's own ray,
No touch that might the life-pulse wake,
No tone emotion to betray,
No self forgotten for its sake !
So pass they all, and it is well !
I would not such should read the mind
Where hidden tenderness may dwell,
Like gem in icy cave confined ;
I would not every eye should read
What one alone should ever know —
One, only one, by Fate decreed
To bid these icy fetters flow !
They deem that changeful, struggling still,
For that nor time nor earth can give ;
Misled by Fancy's aimless will,
I in the cold ideal live.
Oh, it is well ! — thence holier far
Is all I cherish thus apart —
Pure as the brightness of a star,
Deep as the fountains of the heart !
ENDURANCE.
1 She turned to him sorrowfully, saying, ' Thou art free!' Tl.en P<at
did ho feel how deep is the bondage of love."
I HAVE loosed every bond from thy uneasy heart,
Have given thee back every pledge that was dear ;
I have bidden thee go, yet thou wilt not depart —
I have prompted away, yet still thou art here.
I knew that thy freedom would be but in vain,
Thy bondage the same, though absent the token :
The chain may be reft, yet the scar will remain ;
The weight will be felt, though the links are all
broken.
[ shed not a tear when I bade thee depart —
My lip curled with pride, but nothing with scorn ;
[f the pang or the aching were felt at the heart,
Thou couldst not divine that it nourished the
thorn.
[ dreamed not of comfort, I prayed not for bliss ;
In loving I knew was the wreck of my life :
[n silence I bowed and asked but for this —
Thou ever the same in my darkness and strife !
The prayer hath been mocked, it is well that we part ;
Yet it grieves me a will so unfettered as thine
Should wrestle in vain with the bonds of the heart,
A captive unwilling in jesses of mine.
would send thee away with fetterless wing,
W ith eye that nor dimness nor sorrow hath known;
The free airs of heaven around thee should sing,
And I bear the shaft and the anguish alone,
have learned to endure, I have hugged my despair,
I scourge back the madness that else would invade ;
On my brain falls the drop after drop, yet I bear,
Lest thou shouldst discover the wreck thou hast
made !
ELIZABETH OAKES-SMITH.
191
MINISTERING SPIRITS.
WHITE-WIXGED angels meet the child
On the vestibule of life,
And they offer to his lips
All that cup of mingled strife —
Mingled drops of smiles and tears,
Human hopes, and human fears,
Joy and sorrow, love and wo,
Which the future heart must know.
Sad the smile the spirits wear,
Sad the fanning of their wings,
As in their exceeding love
Each a cup of promise hrings :
In the coming strife and care,
They have promised to be there ;
Bowed by weariness or grief,
They will minister relief.
Lady, could the infant look
In that deep and bitter cup,
All its hidden perils know,
Would it quaff life's waters up ?
Lady, yes — for in the vase
Upward beams an angel face ;
Deep and anguished though the sigh,
There is comfort lurking nigh —
Times of joy, and times of wo,
Each an angel-presence know.
THE RECALL, OR SOUL MELODY.
NOTI dulcimer nor harp shall hreathe
Their melody for me ;
Within my secret soul be wrought
A holier minstrelsy !
Descend into thy depths, oh soul !
And every sense in me control.
Thou hast no voice for outward mirth,
Whose purer strains arise
From those that steal from crystal gates,
The hymnings of the skies ;
And well may earth's cold jarrings cease,
When such have soothed thee unto peace.
Within thy secret chamher rest,
And back each sense recall,
That seeketh mid the tranquil stars •
Where melody shall fall ;
Call home the wanderer from the vale,
From mountain and the moonlight pale.
Within the leafy wood, the sound
Of dropping rain may ring,
Which, rolling from the trembling leaf,
Falls on the sparrow's wing ;
And music round the waking flower
May breathe in every star-lit bower :
Yet, come away ! nor stay to hear
The breathings of a voice
Whose subtle tones awake a thrill
To make thee to rejoice,
And vibrate on the listening ear
Too deep, too earnest — ah, too dear.
Yes, come away, and inward turn
Each thought and every sense,
For srrrow lingers from without —
Th( u canst not charm it thence ;
But a'l attuned the soul may be,
Unto a deathless melody.
THE WATER.
How beautiful the water is !
Didst ever think of it,
When down it tumbles from the skies,
As in a merry fit ?
It jostles, ringing as it falls,
On all that's in its way —
I hear it dancing on the roof,
Like some wild thing at play.
'Tis rushing now adown the spout,
And gushing out below,
Half frantic in its joyousness,
And wild in eager flow.
The earth is dried and parched with heat,
And it hath longed to be
Released from out the selfish cloud,
To cool the thirsty tree.
It washes, rather rudely too,
The flow'rets simple grace,
As if to chide the pretty thing
For dust upon its face :
It showers the tree till every leaf
Is free from dust or stain,
Then waits till leaf and branch are stilleil.
And showers them o'er again.
Drop after drop is tinkling down,
To kiss the stirring brook,
The water dimples from beneath
With its own joyous look :
And then the kindred drops embrace,
And singing on they go,
To dance beneath the willow tree,
And glad the vale below.
How beautiful the water is !
It loves to come at night,
To make us wonder in the morn
To find the earth so bright —
To see a youthful gloss is spread
On every shrub and tree,
And flowerets breathing on the ail
Their odors pure and free.
A dainty thing the water is —
It loves the blossom's cup,
To nestle mid the odors there,
And fill the petals up ;
It hangs its gems on every leaf,
Like diamonds in the sun ;
And then the water wins the smile
The floweret should have won.
How beautiful the water is !
To me 'tis wondrous fair —
No spot can ever lonely be,
If water sparkle there ;
It hath a thousand tongues of mirtb.
Of grandeur, or delight,
And every heart is gladder made
When water greets the sight
l'J2
ELIZABETH OAKES-SMITH.
THE BROOK.
" WHITHKTI awav, thou merry Brook,
Whither away so fast,
With dainty feet through the meadow green,
And a srni!e as you hurry past?"
The Brook leaped on in idle mirth,
And dimpled with saucy glee;
The daisy kissed in lovingness,
And made with the wil.ow free.
I heard its lau^h adown the glen,
And over the rocky steep,
Away where the old tree's roots were bare
In the waters dark and deep ;
The sunshine flashed upon its face,
And played with flickering leaf —
Well pleased to dally in its path,
Though the tarrying were brief.
" Now stay thy feet, oh restless one,
Where droops the spreading tree,
And let thy liquid voice reveal
Thy story unto me."
The flashing pebbles lightly rung,
As the gushing music fell,
The chiming music of the brook,
From out the woody dell.
" My mountain home was bleak and high,
A rugged spot s.nd drear,
With searching wind and raging storm,
And moonlight cold and clear.
I longed for a greeting cheery as mine,
For a fond and answering look
But none were in that solitude
To bless the little brook.
" The blended hum of pleasant sounds
Came up from the vale below,
And I wished that mine were a lowly lot,
To lapse, and sing as I go ;
That gentle things, with loving eyes,
Along my path should glide,
And blossoms in their loveliness
Come nestling to my side.
" I leaped me down : my rainbow robe
Hung shivering to the sight,
And the thrill of freedom gave to me
New impulse of delight.
A joyous welcome the sunshine gave,
The bird and the swaying tree ;
The spear-like grass and blossom start
With joy at sight of me.
" The swallow comes with its bit of clay,
When the busy Spring is here,
And twittering hears the moistened gift
A nest on the eaves to rear;
The twinkling feet of flock and herd
Have trodden a path to me,
And the fox and the squirrel come to drink
In the shade of the alder-tree.
" The surinurnt child, with its rounded foo
Comes hither with me to play,
And I feel the thrill of his lightsome heart
As he dashes the merry spray.
I turn the mill with answering glee,
As the merry spokes go round,
And the gray rock takes the echo up,
Rejoicing in the sound.
" The old man bathes his scattered locks,
And drops me a silent tear —
For he sees a wrinkled, careworn face
Look up from the waters clear.
Then I sing in his ear the very song
He heard in years gone by ;
The old man's heart is glad again,
And a joy lights up his eye."
Enough, enough, thou homily brook !
I'll treasure thy teachings well,
And I will yield a heartfelt tear
Thy crystal drops to swell ;
Will bear like thee a kindly love
For the lowly things of earth,
Remembering still that high and pure
Is the home of the spirit's birth.
THE COUNTRY MAIDEN.
I had rather have one kisse,
Cliilde waters of thy mouth,
Than 1 woulde have Cheshire and Lancashire both*
That lye by north and south.— Old Ballad.
I CAME to thee in workday dress
And hair but plainly kempt,
For life is not all holyday,
From toil and care exempt ;
I met thee oft with glowing cheek —
Thus love its tale will tell ;
Though oft its after paleness told
Of hidden grief as well.
Mine eyes that drooped beneath thy glance
To hide their sense of bliss,
Let fall too oft the tears that tell
Of secret tenderness.
I sought for no bewildering lure
Thy senses to beguile,
But checked the woman-playfulness,
The witching tone and smile.
With household look and household word.
And frank as maidens meet,
I dared with earnest, homely truth,
Thy manliness to greet.
For oh ! so much of truth was mine,
So much of love beside,
I wished in simple maidenhood
To be thy chosen bride.
Alas ! the russet robe no more
Of humble life may tell,
And thou dost say the velvet gear
Becomes my beauty well.
'Twas thy dear hand upon my brow
That bound each sparkling gem,
But dearer far its slightest touch
Than all the wealth of them.
Oh ! tell me not of gorgeous robes,
Nor bind the jewel there ;
ELIZABETH CAKES-SMITH.
193
And teil me not with those cold eyes
That 1 am wondrous fair.
I will not chide, I will not blame,
And vet the thought is here,
The thought so fraught with bitterness —
It yieldeth rne no tear.
I gave thee tenderness too deep —
Too deep for aught but tears ;
And thou wouldst teach the world's cold rule,
Which learned, the heart but seres.
I gave Ihee all the soul's deep trust —
Its truth by sorrow tried ;
Nay, start not thou ! what hast thou given 1
Alas ! 'tis but thy pride.
Give back, give back the tenderness
That blessed my simple love,
And call me, as in those dear days,
Thine own, thy gentle dove !
THE APRIL RAIN.
THE April rain — the April rain —
I hear the pleasant sound ;
Now soft and still, like little dew,
Now drenching all the ground.
Pray tell me why an April shower
Is pleasanter to see
Than falling drops of other rain?
I'm sure it is to me.
I wonder if 'tis really so —
Or only hope the while,
That tells of swelling buds and flowers,
And Summer's coming smile.
Whate'er it is, the April shower
Makes me a child again ;
I feel a rush of youthful blood
Come with the April rain.
And sure, were I a little bulb
Within the darksome ground,
I should love to hear the April rain
So gently falling round ;
Or any tiny flower were I,
By Nature swaddled up,
How pleasantly the April shower
Would bathe my hidden cup !
The small brown seed, that rattled down
On the cold autumnal earth,
Is bursting from its cerements forth,
Rejoicing in its birth.
The slender spears of pale green grass
Are smiling in the light,
The clover opes its folded leaves
As if it felt delight.
The robin sings on the leafless tree,
Ana upward turns his eye,
As loving much to see the drops
Come filtering from the sky ;
No doubt he longs the bright green leaves
About his home to see,
And feel the swaying summer winds
Play in the full-robed tree.
13
The cottage door is open wide,
And cheerful sounds are heard ,
The younjr girl sings at the merry wheel
A song like the wilding bird;
The creeping child by the old, worn sill
Peers out with winking eye,
And his ringlets rubs with chubby hand,
As the drops come pattering by.
With bounding heart beneath the »ky,
The truant boy is out,
And hoop and ball are da-rting by
With many a merry shout.
Ay, sport away, ye joyous throng —
For yours is the April day ;
I love to see your spirits dance V
In your pure and healthful pla}r.
ATHEISM.
FAITH.
BE WARE of doubt — faith is the subtle chain
Which binds us to the Infinite : the voice
Of a deep life within, that will remain
Until we crowd it thence. We may rejoice
With an exceeding joy, and make our life,
Ay, this external life, become a part
Of that which is within, o'erwrought and rife
With faith, that childlike blessedness of heart.
The order and the harmony inborn
With a perpetual hymning crown our way,
Till callousness, and selfishness, and scorn, [play.
Shall pass as clouds where scatheless lightning!/
Cling to thy faith — 'tis higher than the thought
That questions of thy faith, the cold external doubt.
REASON.
THE Infinite speaks in our silent hearts,
And draws our being to himself, as deep
Calleth unto deep. He, who all thought imparts,
Demands the pledge., the bond of soul to keep ;
But reason, wandering from its fount afar,
And stooping downward, breaks the subtle chain
That binds it to itself, like star to star,
And sun to sun, upward to God again :
Doubt, once confirmed, tolls the dead spirit's knell,
And man is but a clod of earth, to die
Like the poor beast that in his shambles fell —
More miserable doom than that, to lie
In trembling torture, like believing ghosts, [Hosts*.
Who, though divorced from good, bow to the Lord of
AXXIHI1ATIOX.
DOUBT, cypress crowned, upon a ruined arch
Amid the shapely temple overthrown,
Exultant, stays at length her onward march:
Her victim, all with earthliness o'ergrown,
Hath sunk himself to earth to perish there;
His thoughts are outward, all his love a blight.
Dying, deluding, are his hopes, though t'uir —
And death, the spirit's everlasting night.
Thus, midnight travellers, on some mountain steep.
Hear far above the avalanche boom down,
Starting the glacier echoes from their sleep,
And lost in glens to human foot unknown —
The death-plunge of. the lost come to their ear,
And silence claims again her region cold and dreai.
194
ELIZABETH OAKES-SMITH.
LET ME BE A FANTASY.
LIKE the faint breathing of a distant lute
Heard in the hush of evening still and low,
For which we lingering listen, though ?tis mute,
I would be unto thee, and nothing moe —
Oh, nothing moe
Or like the wind-harp trembling to its pain
With music-joy, which must perforce touch wo
Ere it shall sing itself to sleep again,
80 I would pass to thee, and be no moe —
A breath, no moe !
Like lustre of a stone, that wakens thought
Pure as the cold, far-gleaming mountain snow —
Like water to its crystal beauty wrought —
Like all sweet Fancy dreams, but nothing moe —
A dream, no moe !
Like gleams of better worlds and better truth,
Which our lone hours of aspiration know,
I would renew to thee the dew of youth —
Touch thy good-angel wing— oh, nothing moe —
Oh, nothing moe !
STRENGTH FROM THE HILLS.
COME up unto the hills — thy strength is there.
Oh, thou hast tarried long,
Too long, amid the bowers and blossoms fair,
With notes of summer song.
Why dost thou tarry there 1 what though the bird
Pipes matin in the vale —
The plough-boy whistles to the loitering herd,
As the red daylights fail —
Yet come unto the hills, the old strong hills,
And leave the stagnant plain ;
Come to the gushing of the newborn rills,
As sing they to the main ;
And thou with denizens of power shalt dwell,
Beyond demeaning care ;
Composed upon his rock, mid storm and fell,
The eagle shall be there.
Come up unto the hills : the shattered tree
Still clings unto the rock,
And flingeth out his branches wild and free,
To dare again the shock.
Come where no fear is known : the seabird's nest
On the old hemlock swings,
And thou shalt taste the gladness of unrest,
And mount upon thy wings.
t Jome up unto the hills. The men of old,
They of undaunted wills,
Grew jubilant of heart, and strong, and bold,
On the enduring hills —
Where came the soundings of the sea afar,
Borne upward to the ear,
And nearer grew the moon and midnight star,
And God himself more near.
EROS AND ANTEROS.
'T is said sweet Psyche gazed one night
On Cupid's sleeping face —
Gazed in her fondness on the wight
In his unstudied grace :
But he, bewildered by the glare
Of light at such a time,
Fled from the side of Psyche there
As from a thing of crime.
Ay, weak the fable — false the ground —
Sweet Psyche veiled her face —
Well knowing Love, if ever found,
Will never leave his place.
Un found as yet, and weary grown,
She had mistook another :
'T was but Love's semblance she had founi
Not Eros, but his brother !
THE POET.
NON VOX SED VOTUM.
It is the belief of the vulgar that when the nightingale sings, she U
her breast upon a thorn.
, sing — Poet, sing !
With the thorn beneath thy breast,
Robbing thee of all thy rest ;
Hidden thorn for ever thine,
Therefore dost thou sit and twine
Lays of sorrowing —
Lays that wake a mighty gladness,
Spite of all their mournful sadness.
Sing, sing — Poet sing !
It doth ease thee of thy sorrow —
" Darkling" singing till the morrow ;
Never weary of thy trust,
Hoping, loving as thou must,
Let thy music ring;
Noble cheer it doth impart,
Strength of will and strength of heart.
Sing, sing — Poet, sing !
Thou art made a human voice ;
Wherefore shouldst thou not rejoice
That the tears of thy mute brother
Bearing pangs he may not smother,
Through thee are flowing—
For his dim, unuttered grief
Through thy song hath found relief 'I
Sing, sing — Poet, sing !
Join the music of the stars,
Wheeling on their sounding cars ;
Each responsive in its place
To the choral hymn of space —
Lift, oh lift thy wing —
And the thorn beneath thv breast,
Though it pierce, shall give thee rest
E. C. KIN NET.
THIS fine poet is the daughter of an old
and respected merchant, Mr. J)avid L. Dodge,
who retired from business many years ago.
She was born, and chiefly educated, in the
city of New York, where most of her life
has been passed, in the pursuit of favorite
s'udies, and the intercourse of a large circle
of friends. A few years ago she was mar
ried to Mr. William B. Kinney, of the New
ark Daily Advertiser, one of the most able,
accomplished, and honorable of the men who
preserve to journalism its proper rank, in a
republic, of the first of professions. With a
modesty equal to her genius, and an adequate
sense of their function, she never deemed her
self of the company of poets. Possessing in
a remarkable degree the "fatal facility," she
has written verse from childhood, but never
with any of the usual incentives, except the
desire of utterance, and the gratification of
friends. The Spirit of Song, one of her latest
pieces, is but a simple expression of her
habitual feelings on the subject. The idea
of publication always brought a seme of con
straint, and her early improvisations, pro
duced under this embarrassment, for the
Knickerbocker, Graham's Magazine, and
other periodicals, at " Cedar Brook," her fa
ther's country residence, in the vicinity of
Newai k, appeared under the name of Sted-
man. One of her friends, whose opportuni
ties to know are as great as his acknowledged
sagacity of criticism to judge, observes, in a
letter to me, that "decidedly the most free,
salient, and characteristic effusions of her
buoyant spirit, have been thrown off, cur-
rente calamo, in correspondence and inter
course with her friends."
It will gratify the reader, who can appre
ciate the delicacy and strength and melodi
ous cadences, of the illustrations of her abil
ities that are here quoted, to learn that Mrs.
Kinney is turning her attention more and
more to composition, and that she is medi
tating an elaborate poem, which will serve
as the just measure of her powers.
TO THE EAGLE. i
IMPERIAL bird! that soarest to the sky, [way — j
Cleaving through clouds and storms thine upward
Or, fixing steadfastly that dauntless eye,
Dost face the great, effulgent god of day !
Proud monarch of the feathery tribes of air !
My soul exulting marks thy bold career,
Up, through the azure fields, to regions fair,
Where bathed in light thy pinions disappear.
Thou with the gods upon Olympus dwelt,
The emblem and the favorite bird of Jove —
And godlike power in thy broad wings hast felt
Since first they spread o'er land and sea to rove:
From Ida's top the Thunderer's piercing sight
Flashed on the hosts which Ilium did defy ;
So from thy eyry on the beetling height
Shoot down the lightning-glances of thine eye !
From his Olympian throne Jove stooped to earth
For ends inglorious in the god of gods!
Leaving the beauty of celestial birth,
To rob Humanity's less fair abodes :
Oh, passion more rapacious than divine,
That stole the peace of innocence away !
So, when descend those tireless wings of thine,
They stoop to make defencelessness their prey.
Lo ! where thou comest from the realms afar !
Thy strong wings whir like some huge bellows'
breath ;
Swift falls thy fiery eyeball, like a star,
And dark thy shadow as the pall of death !
But thou hast marked a tall and reverend tree,
And now thy talons clinch yon leafless limb;
Before thee stretch the sandv shore and sea,
And sails, like ghosts, move in the distance dim.
Fair is the scene ! Yet thy voracious eye
Drinks not its beauty ; but with bloody glare
Watches the wild fowl idly floating by,
Or snow-white sea-gull winnowing the air :
Oh, pitiless is thine unerring beak !
Quick as the wings of Thought thy pinions fall-
Then bear their victim to the mountain-peak
Where clamorous eag'ets flutter at thy call.
Seaward again thou turn'st to chase the storm
M'here winds and waters furiously roar!
Above the doomed ship thy boding form
Is coming Fate's dark shadow cast before !
The billows that engulf man's sturdy frame
As sport to thy careering pinions seem;
And though to silence sinks the sailor's nainn,
H:? end is told in thy relentless scream,
195
196
C. KINNEY.
Where the great cataract sends up to heaven
Its spray ey incense in perpetual cloud,
Thy wings in twain the sacred bow have riven,
And onward sailed irreverently proud.
Unflinching bird ! no frigid clime congeals
The fervid blood that riots in thy veins ;
No torrid sun thine upborne nature feels —
The north, the south, alike are thy domains.
Emblem of all that can endure or dare,
Art thou, bold eagle, in thy hardihood !
Emblem of Freedom, when thou cleav 'st the air —
Emblem of Tyranny, when bathed in blood !
Thou wert the genius of Rome's sanguine wars :
Heroes have fought and freely b'ed for thee ;
And here, above our glorious " stripes and stars,"
We hail thy signal wings of Liberty !
The poet sees in thee a type sublime
Of his far-reaching, high-aspiring art !
His fancy seeks with thee each starry clime,
And thou art on the signet of his heart.
Be still the symbol of a spirit free,
Imperial bird ! to unborn ages given —
And to my soul, that it may soar like thee,
Steadfastly looking in the eye of Heaven !
ODE: TO THE MOON.
MYRIADS have sung thy praise,
Fair Dian, virgin goddess of the skies !
And myriads will raise
Their songs, while time yet onward flies,
To thee, chaste prompter of the lover's sighs,
And of the minstrel's lays ;
But still exhaustless as a theme
Shall be thy name
While lives immortal Fame —
As when, to people the first poet's dream,
Thy inspiration came.
None ever lived, or loved,
Who hath not thine oblivious influence felt —
As if a silver veil hid outward things,
While some bright spirit's wings
Mysteriously moved
The world of fancies that within him dwelt.
Kegent of height, what is this charm in thee,
That sways the human soul, like potent witchery 1
When first the infant learns to look on high —
While twilight's drapery his heart appals —
Thy full-orbed presence captivates his eye ;
Or when, mid shadows grim upon the walls,
Are sent thy pallid rays,
'T is awe his bosom fills,
And trembling joy that thrills
His tiny frame, and fastens his young gaze :
Thy spell' is on that heart,
And childhood may depart,
But it shall gather strength with youthful days;
For oft as thou, capricious moon,
Shalt wax and wane,
He — now perchance a lovesick swain —
Will watch thee at night's stilly noon,
Pouring his passion in an amorous strain :
Or, with the mistress of his soul,
Lighted by thy love-whispering beams,
In some secluded garden stroll,
Bewildered in ambrosial dreams;
Nor once suspect, while his full pulses move, [love.
That thou, whom tides obey, mayst turn the tide of
The watcher on the deep,
Though weary be his eye,
Forgets even downy sleep,
When thou art in the sky ;
For with thine image on the silvery sea,
A thousand forms of memory
Whirl in a mazy dance ;
And when he upward looks to thee,
In thy far-reaching glance
There is a sacred bond of sympathy
'Twixt sea and land ;
Yes, on his native strand
That glance awakens kindred souls
To kindred thought ;
And though the deep between them rolls,
Hearts are together brought ;
While tears that fall from eyes at home,
And those that wet the sailor's cheek,
From the same holy fountains come,
The same emotion speak.
The watcher on the land,
Who holds the burning hand
Of one whom scorching fever wastes,
Beholds thee, orient Moon,
With reddened face expanded, in the east,
Till superstition chills his breast,
While tremulous he hastes
To draw the curtains as thou journeyest on;
But vhen the far-spent night
Is streaked with dawning light,
Again, to look on thee,
He lifts the drapery,
And hope divine now triumphs over fear,
As in the zenith far,
A pale, small orb thou dost appear,
While eastward rises morn's resplendent star;
And Fancy sees the parting soul ascend
Where thy mild glories with the azure blend.
Even on the face of Death thou tookest calm.
Fair Dian, as when watchful thou didst keep
Love's holy vigils o'er Endymion's sleep,
Drinking the breath of youth's perpetual balm :
Thy beams are kissing now
The icy brow
Of many a youth in slumber deep,
Who can not yield to thee
The incense of Love's perfumed breath —
For no response gives death.
Ah, 'tis a fearful thing to see
Thy lustre shine
Upon " the human face divine,"
From which the spark Promethean has fled !
As when, oh, melancholy Moon,
Thy light is shed
Upon the marble cold
Of that famed ruin old —
The grand but silent Parthenon.
Dian, enchantress of all hearts !
E. C. KINNEY.
107
While mine in song now worships tbee,
From thy far-reaching bow the silver darts
Fall thick and fast on me.
Oh, beautiful in light and shade
By thee is this fair landscape made !
Gems sparkle on the river's breast,
Now covered by an icy vest ;
Ijpon the frozen hills
A regal glory shines,
And all the scene, as Fancy wills,
Shifts into new designs :
Yet night is still as Death's unbroken realms,
And solemnly thy beams, wan orb, are cast
Through the arched branches of these reverend elms,
As though they through the gothic windows past
Of some old abbey or cathedral vast.
In awe my spirit kneels,
And seems before a hallowed shrine ;
Yet not the majesty of art it feels,
But Nature's law divine —
The presence of her mighty Architect,
Who piled these pyramidic hills sublime,
That stiil, fair Moon, thy radiance will reflect,
And still defy the crumbling touch of Time ;
Who buiit this temple of gigantic trees,
Where Nature's worshippers repair
To pray the heart's unuttered prayer —
That veil( d thought which the Omniscient sees.
Oh, I could muse, and still adore
Religious Night, and thee, her queen !
Till golden Phoebus should restore
His splendor to the scene :
But natural laws thy motions sway,
And these must guide the poet's will ;
Thus, while the soul may tireless stray,
This actual life must weary still :
Then oh, inspirer of my song !
As close these eyes upon thy beams,
Watching amid thy starry throng,
Be thou the goddess of my dreams.
THE SPIRIT OF SONG.
ETKHXAL Fame ! thy great rewards,
Throughout all time, shall be
The right of those old master bards
Of Greece and Italy ;
And of fair Albion's favored isle,
Where Poesy's celestial smile
Hath shone for ages, gilding bright
Her rocky cliffs and ancient towers,
And cheering this New World of ours
With a reflected light.
Yet, though there be no path untrod
By that immortal race —
Who walked with Nature as with God,
And saw her face to face —
No living truth by them unsung,
No thought that hath not found a tongue
In some strong lyre of olden time — ^
Must every tuneful lute be still
That may not give the world a thrill
Of their great harp sublime ]
Oh, not while beating hearts rejoice
In music's simplest tone,
And hear in Nature's every voice
An echo to their own !
Not till these scorn the little rill
That runs rejoicing from the hill,
Or the soft, melancholy glide
Of some deep stream through glen and glada
Because 'tis not the thunder made
By ocean's heaving tide !
The hallowed lilies of the field
In glory are arrayed,
And timid, blue-eyed violets yield
Their fragrance to the shade ;
Nor do the wayside flowers conceal
Those modest charms that sometimes steal
Upon the weary traveller's eyes
Like angels, spreading for his feet
A carpet, filled with odors sweet,
And decked with heavenly dyes.
Thus let the affluent soul of Song —
That all with flowers adorns —
Strew life's uneven path along,
And hide its thousand thorns :
Oh, many a sad and weary heart,
That treads a noiseless way apart,
Has blessed the humble poet's name
For fellowship, refined and free,
In meek wild-flowers of poesy,
That asked no higher fame !
And pleasant as the waterfall
To one by deserts bound,
Making the air all musical
With cool, inviting sound —
Is oft some unpretending strain
Of rural song, to him whose brain
Is fevered in the sordid strife
That Avarice breeds 'twixt man and man,
WThile moving on, in caravan,
Across the sands of Life.
Yet not for these alone he sings :
The poet's breast is stirred
As by the spirit that takes wings
And carols in the bird !
He thinks not of a future name,
Nor whence his inspiration came,
Nor whither goes his warbled song :
As Joy itself delights in joy,
His soul finds life in its employ,
And grows by utterance strong.
THE QUAKERESS BRIDE.
(AN EXTRACT.)
THE building was humble, yet sacred to One
Who heeds the deep worship that utters no tone;
Whose presence is not to the temple confined,
But dwells with the contrite and lowly of mind.
'Twas there all unveiled, save by modesty, stood
The Quakeress bride in her pure satin hood ;
Her charms unadorned by the garland or gem,
Yet fair as the lily just plucked from its stem.
A tear glistened bright in her dark, shaded eye,
And her bosom half uttered a tremulous sigh,
As the hand she had pledged was confidingly giver.
And the low-murmured accents recorded in heaven.
.93
E. C. KINNEY.
SONNETS.
I. CULTIVATION.
WEE us grow unasked, and even some sweet flowers
Spontaneous give their fragrance to the air,
And bloom on hills, in va'es. and everywhere —
As shines the sun, or fall the summer showers —
But wither while our lips pronounce them fair!
Flowers of more worth repay alone the care,
The nurture, and the hopes, of watchful hours ;
While plants most cultured have most lasting pow-
So, flowers of genius that will longest live, [ers.
Spring not in Mind's uncultivated soil,
But are the birth of time, and mental toil,
And all the culture Learning's hand can give :
Fancies like wild flowers, in a night may grow ;
But thoughts are plants whose stately growth is slow.
II. ENCOURAfiE^EXT.
WHEX first peeps out from earth the modest vine,
Asking but little space to live and grow,
How easily some step, without design,
May crush the being from a thing so low !
But let the hand that doth delight to show
Support to feebleness, the tendril twine
Around some lattice-work, and 'twill bestow
Its thanks in fragrance, and with blossoms shine :
And thus, when Genius first puts forth its shoot,
So timid, that it scarce dare ask to live —
The tender germ, if trodden under foot,
Shrinks back again to its undying root;
While kindly training bids it upward strive,
And to the future flowers immortal give.
III. FADIXG AUTUMX.
TH' autumnal glories all have passed away !
The forest leaves no more in hectic red
Give glowing tokens of their brief decay,
But scattered lie, or rustle to the tread,
Like whisper'd warnings from the mouldering dead.
The naked trees stretch out their arms all day,
And each bald hilltop lifts its reverend head"
As if for some new covering to pray.
Come Winter, then, and spread thy robe of white
Above the desolation of this scene ,
And when the sun with gems shall make it bright,
Or, when its snowy folds by midnight's queen
Are silvered o'er with a serener lisjht,
We'll cease to sigh for Summer's living green.
IV. A WINTER XI OUT.
How calm, how solemn, how sublime the scene!
The moon in full-orbed glory sails above,
And stars in myriads around her move;
Each looking down with watchful eye serene
On earth, which in a snowy shroud arrayed,
And still, as in a dreamless sleep 'twere laid,
Saddens the spirit with its deathlike mien : •
Yet doth it charm the eye — its gaze still hold;
Ji^st as the face of one we loved, when cold,
And pale, and lovely e'en in death, 'tis seen,
Will fix the mourner's eye, though trembling fears
Fill all his soul, and frequent fall his tears.
< )h. I could watch, till morn shou'd change the sight,
Tins cold this beautiful, this mournful winter night.
T. TO THE GREEK SLAVE.
BEAUTIFUL model of creative art!
My spirit feels the reverence for thee,
That felt the ancients for a deity :
Ana did the sculptor shape thee, part by part,
Fair, as if whole from Genius' mighty heart
Thou 'dst sprung, like Venus from the foaming sea?
Ah ! not for show, in a disgraceful mart,
Is that calm look of conscious purity ;
Nor should unhallowed eye presume to steal
A sensual glance, where holy minds would kneel,
As to some goddess in her virgin youth.
But who could shame in thy pure presence feel,
Save those who, false themselves, must shrink, for-
From the mild lustre of ungarnished truth 1 [sooth,
VI. TO ARABELLA.
THERE is a pathos in those azure eyes,
Touching, and beautiful, and strange, fair child !
When the fringed lids upturn, such radiance mild
Beams out as in some brimming lakelet lies,
Which undisturbed reflects the cloudless skies :
No tokens glitter there of passion wild,
That into ecstasy with time shall rise ;
But in the deep of those clear orbs are signs —
Which Poesy's prophetic eye divines —
Of woman's love, enduring, undefiled !
If, like the lake at rest, through life we see
Thy face reflect the heaven that in it shines,
No idol to thy worshippers thou 'It be,
For he will worship Heaven who worships thee ,
THE WOODMAN.
HE shoulders his axe for the woods, and away
Hies over the fields at the dawn of the day,
And merrily whistles some tune as he goes,
So heartily trudging along through the snows.
His dog scents his track, and pursues to a mark,
Now sending afar the shrill tones of his bark —
Then answering the echo that comes back again
Through the clear air of morn, over valley and plain.
And now in the forest the woodman doth stand:
His eye marks the victims to fall by his hand,
While true to its aim is the ready axe found, [sound
And quick do its blows through the woodland re-
The proud tree low bendeth its vigorous form, [storm:
Whose freshness and strength have braved many a
And the sturdy oak shakes that never trembled before
Though the years of its glory outnumber threescore.
They fall side by side — just as man in his prime
Lies down with the locks that are whitened by time :
The trees which are felled into ashes will burn,
As man, by Death's blow, unto dust must return.
But twilight approaches: the woodman and dog
Come plodding together through snowdrift and bog,
The axe, again shouldered, its day's work hath done ;
The woodman is hungry — the dog wants his bone.
Oh, home is then sweet, and the evening repast !
But the brow of the woodman with thought is o'er
He is conning a truth to be tested by all — [cast
That man, like the trees of the forest, must fall.
ELIZABETH F. E L L E T.
(Born 1818).
MRS. ELLET'S father was Dr. William A.
Lummis, a pupil and friend of Dr. Benjamin
Rush, whom in person he strikingly resem
bled. He resided several years in Woodbu-
ry, New Jersey ; but afterward, giving up the
practice of his profession, removed to Sodus
Bay, on Lake Ontario, in the state of New
York, where he purchased lands and spent
his fortune in improving them. He died ma
ny years ago, eminently respected for his abil
ities and honorable character. His second
wife, the mother of Mrs. Ellet, was Sarah
Maxwell, a daughter of John Maxwell, a rev
olutionary officer, and niece of General Wil
liam Maxwell, who served in the army with
distinction from Braddock's campaign until
near the close of the war of independence,
when an unjust system of promotions in
duced him with many others to surrender
his commission.
Miss Lummis was married, when about
seventeen years of age, to Dr. William H.
Ellet, then professor of chymistry in Colum
bia College, in New York, and since one of
the professors in the college at Columbia, in
South Carolina, where she resided several
years.
Mrs. Ellet began to write for the maga
zines in 1833, and in the following year ap
peared her translation of Euphemia of Mes
sina, by Silvio Pellico. In the spring of
1835 her tragedy of Teresa Contarini was
successfully represented in New York and
in some of the western cities. It is founded
on Nicolini's Antonio Foscarini, which illus
trates one of the darkest periods in Venetian
history, when the decrees of the senate and
the judgments of the inquisitors were made
most subservient to private purposes. The
play is of the classic school, and it is too de
ficient in action to retain a place upon the
stage. In the autumn of the same year she
published in Philadelphia a volume entitled
Poems, Translated and Original.
From this period until it ceased to be pub
lished, Mrs. Eilet was a frequent contributor
to the American Quarterly Review, for which
she wrote papers on Italian Tragedy, The
Italian Lyric Poets, Lamartine's Poems, Hu«
go's Dramas, The Troubadours, Andreini's
Adam, (the work which suggested to Milton
the idea of his Paradise Lost,) &c.
In 1841 she published The Character of
Schiller, an analysis and criticism of tbeprin
cipal persons in Schiller's plays, with trans
lated extracts, and an essay on Schiller's ge
nius. Her next work was Joanna of Sicily,
a series of passages in the life of tht queen
of Naples, a blending of fact and fiction, with
a coloring of the manners of the middle ages.
This was followed by Country Rambles, a
volume designed for juvenile readers, and de
scriptive of scenery in various parts of the
United States. -^
The last production of Mrs. Ellet, The
Women of the American Revolution, in two
volumes, was published in New York in
the autumn of 1848. Her object was to il
lustrate the action and influence of her sex
in the achievement of our national indepen
dence ; to exhibit something of the character
and feeling of our heroic age, in the domestic
side of the picture ; and with the assistance
of a few gentlemen more familiar than her
self with our public and domestic experi
ence, she has made a valuable and interest
ing work.
From time to time Mrs. Ellet has also pub
lished papers in the North American Review,
the Southern Quarterly Review, and several
of the monthly magazines, upon many sub
jects of literature, art, and history, which
evince considerable scholarship and literary
dexterity.
The poems of Mrs. Ellet do not perhaps
evince much of the inspiration of genius, nor
have they the freshness which distinguishes
much verse that is very inferior in execution ;
but while we rarely perceive in them any
thing that is striking, they, as well as her
prose works, are uniformly respectable. The
most creditable illustrations of her abilities
seem to be her translations from me French
and Italian languages, in which she has oc
casionally been remarkably successful.
Mrs. Ellet now resides in New "YorK
199
200
ELIZABETH F. ELLET.
SUSQ.UE HANNAH.
SOFTLY the blended light of evening rests
Upon thce, lovely stream ! Thy gentle tide,
Picturing the gorgeous heautv of the sky,
Onward, unhroken by the ruffling wind,
Majestically flows. Oh, by thy side,
Far from the tumults and the throng of men,
And tie vain cares that vex poor human life,
'Twcre happiness to dwell, alone with thee,
And the wide, so'emn grandeur of the scene.
From thy green shores, the mountains that enclose
In their vast sweep the beauties of the plain,
Slowly receding, toward the skies ascend,
Enrobed with clustering woods, o'er which the smile
Of Autumn in his loveliness hath passed,
Touching their foliage with his brilliant hues,
And flinging o'er the lowliest leaf and shrub
His golden livery. On the distant heights
Soil clouds, earth-based, repose, and stretch afar
Their burnished summits in the clear, blue heaven,
Flooded with splendor, that the dazzled eye
Turns drooping from the sight. Nature is here
Like a throned sovereign, and thy voice doth tell,
In music never silent, of her power.
Nor are thy tones unanswered, where she bui'ds
Such monuments of regal sway. These wide,
Untrodden forests eloquently speak,
Whether the breath of summer stir their depths,
Or the hoarse moaning of November's blast
Strip from the boughs their covering. All the air
Is now instinct with life. The merry hum
Of the returning bee, and the blithe song
Of fluttering bird, mocking the solitude,
Swell upward; and the play of dashing streams
From the green mountain-side is faintly heard.
The wild swan swims the waters' azure breast
With graceful sweep, or, startled, soars away,
Cleaving with mounting wing the clear, bright air.
Oh, in the boasted lands beyond the deep,
Where Beauty hath a birthright, where each mound
And mouldering ruin tells of ages past —
And every breeze, as with a spirit's tone,
Doth waft the voices of Oblivion back,
Waking the soul to lofty memories,
Is there a scene whose loveliness could fill
The heart with peace more pure ? Nor yet art thou,
Proud stream ! without thy records— graven deep
On von eternal hills, which shall endure
Long as their summits breast the wintry storm,
Or smile in the warm sunshine. They have been
The chroniclers of centuries gone by :
Of a stransre race, who trod perchance their sides,
Ere these gray woods had sprouted from the earth
Which now they shade. Here onward swept thy
waves,
When tones now silent mingled with their sound,
And the wide shore was vocal with the song
Of hunter chief, or lover's gentle strain.
Those passed away — forgotten as they passed;
But holier recollections dwell with thee :
Here hath immortal Freedom built her proud
And solemn monuments. The mighty dust
Of heroes in her cause of glory fallen*
Hath mingled with the soil and hallowed it.
Thy waters in tneir brilliant path have seen
The desperate strife that won a rescued world —
The deeds of men who live in grateful hearts,
And hymned their requiem. Far beyond this vale,
That sends to heaven its incense of lone flowers,
Gay village spires ascend — and the glad voice
Of industry is heard. So in the lapse
Of future years these ancient woods shall bow
Beneath the levelling axe — and man's abodes
Displace their sylvan honors. They will pass
In turn away ; yet, heedless of all change,
Surviving all, thou still wilt murmur on,
Lessoning the fleeting race that look on thee
To mark the wrecks of time, and read their doom.
LAKE ONTARIO.
DEKP thoughts o'ershade my spirit while I gaze
Upon the blue depths of thy mighty breast;
Thy glassy face is bright with sunset rays,
And thy far-stretching waters are at rest,
Save the small wave that on thy margin plays,
Lifting to summer airs its flashing crest :
While the fleet hues across thy surface driven,
Ming'e afar in the embrace of heaven.
Thy smile is glorious when the morning's spring
Gives ha'f its glowing beauty to the deep ;
When the dusk swallow dips his drooping wing,
And the gay winds that o'er thy bosom sweep
Tribute from dewy woods and violets bring,
Thy restless billows in their gifts to steep.
Thou't beautiful when evening moonbeams shine,
And the soft hour of night and stars is thine.
Thou hast thy tempests, too ; the lightning's home
Is near thee, though unseen ; thy peaceful shore,
When storms have lashed these waters into foam,
Echoes fu'.l oft the pealing thunder's roar.
Thou hast dark trophies: the unhonored tomb
Of those now sought and wept on earth no more :
Full many a goodly form, the loved and brave,
Lies whelmed and still beneath thy sullen wave.
The world was young with thee : this swelling flood
As proudly swelled, as purely met the sky,
When sound of life roused not the ancient wood,
Save the wild eagle's scream, or panther's cry :
Here on this verdant bank the savage stood.
And shook his dart and battle-axe on high,
While hues of slaughter tinged thy billows blue,
As deeper and more close the conflict grew.
Here, too, at early morn, the hunter's song
Was heard from wooded isle and grassy glade
And here, at eve, these clustered bowers among,
The low, sweet carol of the Indian maid,
Chiding the slumbering breeze and shadows long,
That kept her lingering lover from the shade,
While, scarcely seen, thy willing waters o'er,
Sped the light bark that bore him to the shore.
Those scenes are past. The spirit of changing years
Has breathed on all around, save thee alone.
More faintly the receding woodland hears
Thy voice, once full and joyous as its own.
Nations have gone from earth, nor trace appears
To tell their tale — forgotten or unknown :
Yet here, unchanged, untamed, thy waters lie.
Azure, and clear, and boundless as the sky.
ELIZABETH F. ELLET.
20 '
THE DELAWARE WATER-GAP.
OUR western land can boast no lovelier spot.
The hills which in their ancient grandeur stand,
Piled to the frowning clouds, the bulwarks seem
Of this wild scene, resolved that none but Heaven
Shall look upon its beauty. Round their breast
A curtained fringe depends, of golden mist,
Touched by the slanting sunbeams ; while below
The silent river, with majestic sweep,
Pursues his shadowed way — his glassy face
Unbroken, save when stoops the lone wild swan
To float in pride, or dip his ruffled wing.
Talk ye of solitude 1 — It is not here.
Nor silence. — Low, deep murmurs are abroad.
Those towering hills hold converse with the sky
That smiles upon their summits ; and the wind
Which stirs their wooded sides, whispers of life,
And bears the burden sweet from leaf to leaf,
Bidding the stately forest-boughs look bright,
And nod to greet his coming ! And the brook,
That with its silvery gleam comes leaping down
From the hillside, has, too, a tale to tell ;
The wild bird's music mingles with its chime ;
And gay young flowers, that blossom in its path,
Send forth their perfume as an a*dded gift.
The river utters, too, a solemn voice,
And tells of deeds long past, in ages gone,
When not a sound was heard along his shores,
Save the wild tread of savage feet, or shriek
Of some expiring captive — and no bark
E'er cleft his gloomy waters. Now, his waves
Are vocal often with the hunter's song ;
Now visit, in their glad and onward course,
The abodes of happy men, gardens and fields,
And cultured plains — still bearing, as they pass,
Fertility renewed and fresh delights.
The time has been — so Indian legends say —
When here the mighty Delaware poured not
His ancient waters through, but turned aside
Through yonder dell and washed those shaded vales.
Then, too, these riven cliffs were one smooth hill,
Which smiled in the warm sunbeams, and displayed
The wea'th of summer on its graceful slope.
Thither the hunter-chieftains oft repaired
To light their council-fires ; while its dim height,
For ever veiled in mist, no mortal dared,
'T is said, to scale ; save one white-haired old man,
Who there held commune with the Indian's God,
And thence brought down to men his high com
mands.
Years passed away : the gifted seer had lived
Beyond life's natural term, and bent no more
His weary limbs to seek the mountain's summit.
New tribes had filled the land, of fiercer mien,
Who strove against each other. Blood and death
Filled those green shades where all before was peace,
And the stern warrior scalped his dying captive
E'en on the precincts of that holy spot [mourned
Where the Great Spirit had been. Some few, who
The unnatural slaughter, urged the aged priest
Again to seek the consecrated height,
Succor from Heaven, and mercy to implore.
They watched him from afar. He labored slowly
High up the steep ascent, and vanished soon
Behind the folded clouds, which clustered dark
As the last hues of sunset passed away.
The night fell heavily ; and soon were heard
Low tones of thunder from the mountain-top,
Muttering, and echoed from the distant hills _
In deep and solemn peal ; while lurid flashes
Of lightning rent anon the gathering gloom.
Then, wilder and more loud, a fearful crash
Burst on the startled ear : the earth, convulsed,
Groaned from its solid centre ; forests shook
For leagues around ; and, by the sudden gleam
Which flung a fitful radiance on the spot,
A sight of dread was seen. The mount was rent
From top to base; and where so late had smiled
Green boughs and blossoms, yawned a frightful
chasm,
Filled with unnatural darkness. From afar
The distant roar of waters then was heard :
They came, with gathering sweep, o'erwhelming all
That checked their headlong course ; the rich maize
The low-roofed hut, its sleeping inmates — all [field,
Were swept in speedy, undistinguished ruin !
Morn looked upon the desolated scene
Of the Great Spirit's anger, and beheld
Strange waters passing through the cloven rocks ;
And men looked on in silence arid in fear,
And far removed their dwellings from the spot,
Where now no more the hunter chased his prey,
Or the war-whoop was heard. Thus years went on :
Each trace of desolation vanished fast;
Those bare and blackened cliffs were overspread
With fresh, green foliage, and the swelling earth
Yielded her stores of flowers to deck their sides.
The river passed majestically on
Through his new channel; verdure graced his banks;
The wild bird murmured sweetly as before
In its beloved woods ; and naught remained,
Save the wild tales which hoary chieftains told,
To mark the change celestial vengeance wrought.
EXTRACTS FROM TERESA CONTARINI.
INSENSIBILITY.
My heart is senseless. It is 'cold — cold — cold!
Steeled in an apathy more deep than wo,
Which even keen Thought can never pierce again.
What nights of feverish unrest I've borne,
What days of weeping and of bitterness,
When I have schooled me to a mocking calmness,
While my heart ached within ! But all is past!
My spirit is a waste o'er which hath raged
The desolating fire, to leave its trace
In blackened ruins. I can feel no more !
Would that I could ! I 'd rather bear the gnawing
Of anguish, than this dull, dead, frozen void,
In which all sense is buried.
LOTE, IX YOUTH AXD ARE.
How doth Youth
Wear his soft yoke 1 More lightly than he wears
The pageant plume, which every fickle wind
Stirs at its will, to be thrown careless by,
When he shall weary of its pride ! To youth
Love is the shallow rill that mocks the sunshine,
Wasting its strength in idle foam away ,
ELIZABETH F. ELLET.
To age, the rivor. silort, broad, and deep —
Hiding the wealth of years within its breast —
Baffling the vain eye that would read its depths
Broader and deeper growing, as the channel
Of life wears on !
SODUS BAY.
I BLESS thee, native shore !
Thy woodlands gay, and waters sparkling clear !
'Tis like a dream once more
The music of thy thousand waves to hear,
As, murmuring up the sand,
With kisses bright they lave the sloping land.
The gorgeous sun looks down,
Bathing thee gladly in his noontide ray ;
And o'er thy headlands brown
With loving light the tints of evening play :
Thy whispering breezes fear
To break the calm so softly hallowed here.
Here, in her green domain,
The stamp of Nature's sovereignty is found ;
With scarce disputed reign
She dwells in all the solitude around :
And here she loves to wear
The regal garb that suits a queen so fair.
Full oft my heart hath yearned
For thy sweet shades and vales of sunny rest ;
Even as the swan returned.
Stoops to repose upon thy azure breast,
I greet each welcome spot
Forsaken long — but ne'er, ah, ne'er forgot.
'Twas here that memory grew — [left;
T was here that childhood's hopes and cares were
Its early freshness, too —
Ere droops the soul, of her best joys bereft :
Where are they ? — o'er the track
Of cold years, I would call the wanderers back !
They must be with thee still :
Thou art unchanged — as bright the sunbeams play:
From not a tree or hill
Hath time one hue of beauty snatched away
Unchanged alike should be
The blessed things so late resigned to thee.
Give back, oh, smiling deep,
T'ne heart's fair sunshine, and the dreams of youth
That in thy bosom sleep —
Life's April innocence, and trustful truth !
The tones that breathed of yore
In thy lone murmurs, once again restore.
Where have they vanished all ?
l »uly the heedless winds in answer sigh ;
Still rushing at thy call,
With reckless sweep the streamlet flashes by !
And idle as the air,
Ur fleeting stream, my soul's insatiate prayer.
Home of sweet thoughts — farewell !
Where'er through changeful life my lot may be,
A deep and hallowed spell "
I* on thy waters and thy woods for me :
Though vainly fancy craves
Its childhood with the music of thy waves.
O'ER THE WILD WASTE.
O'ER the wild waste where flowers of hope lay dead,
And wan rays struggled faintly through the gloom,
Like starbeams on the midnight waters shed —
Thou hast brought back the sunshineand thebloom
Like the free bird at heaven's blue portal singing,
Thy coming heralded the auspicious morn ;
And go'den songs, and airy shapes upspringirig,
In answering joy from night's dark breast were boni.
Thou art the flower, whence zephyrs' balm is stealing:
The fountain, sparkling in the smile of day :
The sunwrought iris, in the cloud revealing
More tints than on the radiant sunset play.
Blessings be with thee, oh, thou happy hearted !
For thoughts of beauty, fresh, and glad, and wild —
For visions of enchantment long departed,
Bright as when first they dawned on Fancy's child '
The Beautiful, that from life's sky had faded,
Fleet dream of joy — ere passed the morning ray,
Shines forth, by sorrow's wing no longer shaded,
And pours again a sunshine on my way.
No rainbow lustre to thy life's sweet dreaming,
No gifts like thine, alas ! can she impart, [ing —
Whose trust, lone dove o'er darkened waters gleam-
Comes home to nestle in her pining heart !
Yet go thy way, blest evermore and blessing! [prayer;
Heaven scorns not, nor wilt thou, one deep heart's
And mine shall be, that earth's best joys possessing,
God's love may guard thee — his peculiar care !
SONG.
COME, fill a pledge to sorrow,
The song of mirth is o'er,
And if there 's sunshine in our hearts,
'T will light our theme the more :
And pledge we dull life's changes,
As round the swift hours pass —
Too kind were fate, if none but gems
Should sparkle in Time's glass.
The dregs and foam together
Unite to crown the cup,
And well we know the weal and wo
That fill life's chalice up !
Life's sickly revellers perish —
The goblet scarcely drained :
Then lightly quaff, nor lose the sweets
Which may not be retained.
WThat reck we that unequal
Its varying currents swell —
The tide that bears our pleasures down,
Buries our griefs as well ;
And if the swift-winged tempest
Have crossed our changeful day,
The wind that tossed our bark has swept
Full many a cloud away.
Then grieve not that naught mortal
Endures through passing years :
Did life one changeless tenor keep,
'Twere cause, indeed, for tears.
And fill we, ere our parting,
A mantling pledge to sorrow :
The pang that wrings the heart to-dar
Time's touch will lisal to-morrow !
ELIZABETH F. ELLET.
203
THE OLD LOVE.
THE old love — the old love —
It hath a master spell,
And in its home — the human heart —
It worketh strong and well :
Ay, well and sure it worketh,
And casteth out amain
Intrusive shapes of evil —
A sullen, spectral train :
The serpent, Pride, is crested,
And Hate hath lips of gall ;
But the old love — the old love —
'T is stronger than them all !
Years, weary years have vanished,
Lady, since whisperers wrought
The work that sundered you and me,
With words that poison thought :
Ah ! lasting is the sorrow
Of a deep and hidden wound,
When with the coming morrow
No healing balm is found ;
And easy 'tis with words to hide
The stricken spirit's yearning,
And wear a look of icy pride
When the heart within is burning !
Oh, 'tis a bitter, bitter thing,
Beneath God's holy sky,
To fill that sentient thing, the heart,
With strife and enmity !
Yea, wo to those who plant the seed
That yieldeth naught but dole —
To those who thus do murder
God's image in the soul !
Yet silently and softly
The dews of mercy fall :
And the old love — the old love —
It triumphs over all.
It was but yestereven
A vision light and free,
From the old and happy dreamland,
Came gliding down to me :
A vision, lady, of the past,
The cottage far away,
Where you and I together
Oft sat at close of day —
Where you and I together
Oft watched the starlit skies,
And the soul of gentle kindness
Beamed on me from your eyes :
And there were gentle voices,
Like some remembered song,
And there were hovering shadows,
A pale and beauteous throng !
They seemed like blessed angels,
Those kindly memories —
That floated on their beaming wings,
To steep the soiil in peace '
They smiled upon me softly,
Though ne'er a word was spo'ice —
And then the golden past came back,
And then — my proud heart broke !
And, lady, from the vision
I wistful rose to pray,
That unto ruling love might be
The victory alway :
Oh, many are its cruel foes —
A host well armed and strong,
And that fair garnished chamber
Hath been their duelling long :
But the old love — the old love —
It hath a master spell,
And in its home — the human heart —
It worketh sure and well !
THE SEA-KINGS.
1 They are rightly named sea-kings," says the author of the Ingli-igm-
saga, '• who never seek shelter under a roof, and never dram their
drinking-horn at a cottage fire."
Oun realm is mighty Ocean,
The broad and sea-green wave
That ever hails our greeting gaze —
Our dwelling-place and grave !
For us the paths of glory lie
Far on the swelling deep ;
And, brothers to the Tempest,
We shrink not at his sweep !
Our music is the storm-blast
In fierceness revelling nigh,
When on our graven bucklers gleam
His lightnings glancing by.
Yet most the flash cf war-steel keen
Is welcome in our sight,
When flies the startled foeman
Before our falchions' light.
We ask no peasant's shelter,
We seek no noble's bowers ;
Yet they must yield us tribute meet,
For all they boast is ours.
No cast'ed prince his wide domain
Dares from our yoke to free ;
Arid, like mysterious Odin,
WTe rule the land and sea !
Rear high the blood-red banner !
Its folds in triumph wave —
And long unsullied may it stream
The standard of the brave !
Our swords outspec-u the meteor's glance :
The world their might shall know,
So long as iieaven snines o'er us,
Or ocean roils below !
VENICE.
From afar
The surgelike tone of multitudes, the hum
Of glad, familiar voices, and the wild
Faint music of the happy gondolier,
Float up in Mended murmurs. Queen of cities'
Goddess of ocean ! with the beauty crowned
Of Aphrodite from her parent deep !
If thine Ausonian heaven denies the strength
That nerves a mountain race of sterner mould,
It gives thee charms whose very softness wins
All hearts to worship !
204
ELIZABETH F. ELLET.
SONNETS.
MAIIT MAGIIALKX.
, tho' grief and shame o'erflow thine eyes;
Blessed, though scoffed at by the gazing crowd:
He unto whom thou kneelst rebukes the proud,
And bids thee now the child of Heaven arise.
Hath he rot said, that where the bramble grew
The myrtle should come up ? the sweet fir tree
Replace the thorn, and grass abundantly
Wave where the desert land no moisture knew 1
But see the bleak and lonely wilderness
With fragrant roses, like a garden bloom —
The perished tree revive, again to bless !
See, fed with streams, the thirsty land rejoice —
And hear the waste lift up its gladsome voice,
" To taste his fruits, let my Beloved come."
THE GOOD SHEPHKHI).
SHEPHERD, with meek brow wreathed with blossoms
sweet,
Who guardst thy timid flock with tenderest care,
Who guid'st in sunny paths their wandering feet,
And the young lambs dost in thy bosom bear;
Who leadst thy happy Hock to pastures fair,
And by still waters at the noon of day —
Charming with lute divine the silent air,
What time they linger on the verdant way :
Good Shepherd ! might one gentle, distant strain
Of that immortal melody sink deep
Into my heart, and pierce its careless sleep,
And melt by powerful love its sevenfo'd chain:
Oh, then my soul thv voice should know, and flee
To mingle with thy flock, and ever follow Thee !
OH, WEARY HEART.
OH, weary heart, there is a rest for thee !
Oh truant heart, there is a blessed home —
An is e of gladness on life's wayward sea,
Where storms that vex the waters never come;
There trees perennial yield their balmy shade,
There flower-wreathed hi Is in sun.it beauty sleep,
There meek streams murmur thro' the verdant glade,
There heaven bends smiling o'er the placid deep.
Winnowed by wings immortal that fair isle;
Vocal its air with music from above :
There meets the exiie eve a vve'coming smile;
There ever speaks a summoning voice of love
Unto the heavy-laden and distressed,
" Come unto me, and I will give you rest."
"ABIDE WITH US."
« ABIDE with us ! The evening hour draws on ;
And pleasant at the daylight's fading close
The traveller's repose !
A nd as at morn's approach the shades are gone,
Thy words, oh, blessed stranger, have dispelled
The midnight gloom in which our souls were held.
Sad \\-ereoursouls, and quenched hope's latest ray,
But thou to us hast words of comfort given
Of Him who came from heaven !
How burned our hearts within us on the way,
While thou the sacred scripture didst unfold,
And bad'st us trust the promise given of old.
Abide with us : let us not lose thee yet !
Lest unto us the cloud of fear return,
When we are left to mourn
That Israel's Hope — his better Sun — is set !
Oh, teach us more of what we long to know,
That new-born joy may chide our faithless wo."
Thus in their sorrow the disciples prayed,
And knew not He was walking by their side
Who on the cross had died !
But when he broke the consecrated bread,
Then saw they who had deigned to bless their board,
And in the stranger hailed their risen Lord.
"Abide with us !" Thus the believer prays,
Compassed with doubt and bitterness and dread —
W hen, as life from the dead,
The bow of mercy breaks upon his gaze :
He trusts the word, yet fears lest from his heart
He whose discourse is peace too soon depart.
Open, thou trembling one, the portal wide,
And to the inmost chamber of thy breast
Take home the heavenly guest !
He for the famished shall a feast provide —
And thou shalt taste the bread of life, and so?
The Lord of angels come to sup with thee.
Belovi'd — who for us with care hast sought —
Say, shall we hear thy voice, and let thee wait
All night before the gate —
W7et with the dews — nor greet thee as we ought 1
Oh, strike the fetters from the hand of pride,
And, that we perish not, with us, O Lord, abide !
THE PERSECUTED.
Oh angel! tl
be threefold bliss in lieaven,
ilark earth hast inner, ibrgive
IT was a bitter pain
That pierced her gentle heart;
For barbed bv malice was the dart,
And sped with treachery's deadliest art,
The shaft ne'er sped in vain.
That trusting heart, so true,
(For guile it never knew !)
The tender heart, that ever clung
Where its wild wreath of love was flung —
Tue proud, high heart, that could have borne
Ail, save that false, unrighteous scorn —
It writhed beneath the stroke
Of that strange, cruel wrong :
Yet not — not then it broke —
For brave it was and strong !
'T was like the startled dove,
Scared from her woody nest —
Her sheltered home of love,
Deep in the mountain's breast :
When first she mounts, the caverns ring
To the wild flapping of her wing;
But once aloft, she cleaves the light,
And floats in calm, unruffled flight.
Thus struggling o'er the wo to rise,
The stricken, heart-distempered flies —
Thus soars at last, its pain and peril o'er,
Serene in tranquil pride, to fear the shaft no more
ELIZABETH F. ELLET.
205
A DIRGE.*
HE is gone ! Though mournfully
Comes the deep, heart-heaved sigh,
Though your tears do fall like rain,
Though no outward sign could show
All the bosom's wordless wo —
All is in vain :
He, for whom ye, stricken, mourn,
He, the lost one, shall return
Never again !
To the grave in silence down,
To the sullen, rayless gloom
In the chambers of the tomb,
He now is gone !
With his trustful, generous truth,
In his guileless, joyous youth —
In his gentle constancy,
In his young heart's purity ;
Wearing life's wreath blooming, bright,
That had known no touch of blight ;
With the genius God had given,
In the very smile of Heaven ;
Smiling all around, above him,
Knowing none who did not love him —
He hath passed away !
Ye who strove his flight to stay,
Well ye know that he you mourn
Never caused your hearts a pain,
Till he left you, to return
Never again !
Pass with measured pace and slow,
Hide the faces pale with wo ;
Solemn music, sad and low,
Fill the hallowed aisle !
Let the the darkly-folded pall
Like a shadow o'er him fall —
Him — your joy e'erwhile ;
Let the slowly sounding bell
Peal its deep-voiced, warning knell :
To the earth, with words of trust,
Then commit him — dust to dust !
Weep now for the lonely morrow,
For the hearth light cold —
In your dark and silent sorrow,
Hearts with grief grown old :
Ye have trod the vintage dread,
Till no purple drops remain ;
Till no more its wine is shed
Ye have drained the cup of pain.
And ye know, as years go on,
And are numbered one by one,
This same grief shall have its rest
In the worn and wounded breast ;
Ye shall look and long in vain,
Following still in thought the track
He has passed, who will come back
Never again !
Friends of youth, too, he left,
When he departed :
They are weeping now, bereft —
They, the true hearted.
* In style and measure, this is an imitation of a poem by
an English author, entitled The Flight of Youth.
Desolate is now the place
Where so late they saw his face,
And a darkness seems to brood
On the sudden solitude.
Soon the places that of yore
Knew, shall know the lost no more ;
Soon forgotten he shall be,
He who all so happy made
With his smile so light and free,
Bringing sunshine to the shade.
Ay, between those hearts and him
Lies a gulf so dark and dim,
Eyes of flesh look not upon
That strange distant shore,
Whither the lost friend is gone
To return no more !
Alas ! 'tis even so :
Yet from that unknown land,
That house not made with mortal hand,
Can not the parted soul command
Some balm for earthly wo 1
Blessed the dead, the Spirit saith,
Who life's beguiling path have trod
Obedient to the law of faith,
With heart still fixed on God.
Eye hath not seen that world above ;
Ear hath not heard that hymn of love :
Oh, if but once were rent away
The veil which hides that heavenly day,
On this cold earth we would not stay !
Heard we the harpings of that sphere,
We would not linger here !
Yea, we would spurn this darksome earth,
And stretch our eager wings, and fly
To claim our heritage by birth —
Heaven and Eternity !
Nor marvel — in that glorious land,
Who taste the joys at God's right hand,
Where love divine doth reign — .
Who Heaven's own praises learn —
To this sad earth return
Never again !
THE BURIAL.
WE laid her in the hallowed place
Beside the solemn deep,
Where the old woods by Greenwood's shorp
Keep watch o'er those who sleep :
We laid her there — the young and fair,
The guileless, cherished one —
As if a part of life itself
With her we loved were gone.
Like to the flowers she lived and bloomed,
As bright and pure as they ;
And like a flower the blight had touched,
She early passed away.
Oh, none might know her but to love,
Nor name her but to praise,
Who only love for others knew
Through life's brief vernal days
JULIA H. SCOTT.
(Born 1809-Died 1842).
THE late Mrs. Mayo describes the life of
Mrs. SCOTT as having been "commenced in
Dne of the quietest mountain valleys, and,
with one or two brief episodes only, matured
and finished not a dozen miles from where it
was begun." In such a career there could
have been little to interest the public, and
ner friend appropriately confided the me
moir prefixed to her poems as much as pos
sible to the growth and product of her mind.
Mrs. Scott's maiden name was JULIA H. KIN-
NET, and she was born on the fourth of No
vember, 1809, in the beautiful valley of She-
shequin, in northern Pennsylvania. Her pa
rents were in humble circumstances, and as
the eldest of a large family she seems to have
lived the patient Griselda, beautifully fulfil
ling all the duties of her condition, while she
availed herself of every opportunity to en
large her knowledge and improve her tastes.
She wrote verses with some point and har
mony when but twelve years of age, and
when sixteen or seventeen began to publish
! in a village newspaper essays and poems that
evinced a fine fancy and earnest feeling. She
afterward wrote for The Casket, a monthly
magazine published in Philadelphia, for The
New-Yorker, and for the Universalist reli
gious journals. In May, 1835, she was mar
ried to Dr. David L. Scott, of Towanda, the
principal village of the county, which from
this period became her home. In 1838 she
visited Boston, and she made some other ex
cursions for the improvement of her health,
but consumption had wasted the singularly
fine person and blanched the beautiful face
which I remember to have seen in their me
ridian, and in the last year of her life she had
no hope of restoration. She died at Towan
da on the fifth of March, 1842.
The poems of Mrs. Scott, with a memoir
by Miss S. C. Edgarton, (afterward Mrs.
Mayo,) were published in Boston, in 1843.
The volume contains an excellent portrait
of her by S. A. Mount, and several commem
orative poems by her friends.
THE TWO GRAVES.
THEY sweetly slumber, side by side,
Upon the green and pleasant hill
Where the young morning's sunny title
First wakes the shadows, dark and still,
And where gray twilight's breeze goes by
Laden with woodland melody,
And Heaven's own tireless watchmen keep
A vigil o'er their slumbers deep.
They sleep together — but their graves
Are marked by no sepulchral stone ;
Above their heads no willow waves,
No cypress shade is o'er them thrown: •
The only record of their deeds
Is that where silent Memory leads,
Their only monument of fame
Is found in each belovi d name.
Oh. theirs was not the course which seals
The iavor of a fickle world,
They did not raise the warring steel,
Their hands no bloody flag unfurled ,
They came not with a cup of wrath,
To drench with gall life's thorny path,
But, day and night, they strove to win,
Uy love, the palsied soiii iroin sin.
Like two bright stars at eventide,
They shone with undiminished ray ;
And! though clouds gathered far and wide,
Still held they on their upward' way,
And still unheeded swept them by
The threatening! of this lower sky —
For they had built upon the Rock,
Defying tide and tempest's shock.
To them the vanities of life
Were but as bubbles of the sea :
They shunned the boisterous swell of strife ;
From Pride's low thrall their souls were
free.
They only sought by Christ to show
The Father's love for all below ;
They 'only strove through Christ to raise
The wandering mind from error's maze.
But now they sleep — and oh, may ne'er
One careless footstep press the sod
Where moulder those we held so dear,
The friends of man, the friends of God !
And let alone warm feeling twine
An offering at their lowly shrine ;
While all who knew them humbly try
Like them to live, like them to die.
906
JULIA H. SCOTT.
207
MY CHILD.
" There is one who has loved me debarred from the day."
THE foot of Spring is on yon blue-topped mountain,
Leaving its green prints 'neath each spreading tree ;
Her voice is heard beside the swelling fountain,
Giving sweet tones to its wild melody.
From the warm south she brings unnumbered roses,
To greet with smiles the eye of grief and care :
Her balmy breath on the worn hrow reposes,
And her rich gifts are scattered everywhere ; —
I heed them not, my child.
In the low vale the snow-white daisy springeth,
The golden dandelion by its side ;
The eglantine a dewy fragrance flingeth
To the soft breeze that wanders far and wide.
The hyacinth and polyanthus render,
From their deep hearts, an offering of love ;
And fresh May-pinks and half-blown lilacs tender
Their grateful homage to the skies above ; —
I heed them not, my child.
In the clear brook are springing water-cresses,
And pale green rushes, and fair, nameless flowers;
While o'er them dip the willow's verdant tresses,
Dimpling the surface with their mimic showers.
The honeysuckle stealthily is creeping
Round the low porch and mossy cottage-eaves ;
Oh ! Spring hath fairy treasures in her keeping,
And lovely are the landscapes that she weaves ; —
'T is naught to me, my child.
Down the green lane come peals of heartfelt laughter;
The school hath sent its eldest inmates forth ;
And now a smaller band comes dancing after,
Filling the air with shouts of infant mirth.
At the rude gate the anxious dame is bending,
To clasp her rosy darlings to her breast ;
Joy, pride, and hope, are in her bosom blending ;
Ah ! peace with her is no unusual guest ; —
Not so with me, my child.
All the day long I listen to the singing
Of the gay birds and winds among the trees ;
But a sad under-strain is ever ringing
A tale of death and its dread mysteries.
Nature to me the letter is, that killeth —
The spirit of her charms has passed away ;
A fount of bliss no more my bosom filleth —
Slumbers its idol in unconscious clay ; —
Thou'rt in t\\e grave, my child.
For thy glad voice my spirit inly pineth,
I languish for thy blue eyes' holy light :
Vainly for me the glorious sunbeam shineth ;
Vainly the blessed stars come forth at night.
I walk in darkness, with the tomb before me,
Longing to lay my dust beside thine own;
Oh cast the mantle of thy presence o'er me !
Beloved, leave me not so deeply lone ; —
Come back to me, my child !
Upon that breast of pitying love thou leanest,
Which oft on earth did pillow such as thou,
Nor turned away petitioner the meanest :
Pray to Him, sinless — he will hear thce now.
Plead for thy weak and broken-hearted mother ;
Pray that thy voice may whisper words of peace :
Her ear is deaf, and can discern no other ;
Speak, and her bitter sorrowings shall cease ; —
Come back to me, my child !
Come but in dreams — let me once more behold thee,
As in thy hours of buoyancy and glee,
And one brief moment in my arms enfold thee —
Beloved, I will not ask thy stay with me. '
Leave but the impress of thy dovelike beauty,
Which Memory strives so vainly to recall,
And I will onward in the path of duty,
Restraining tears that ever fain would fall ; —
Come but in dreams, my child !
INVOCATION TO POETRY.
1 1 said to the spirit of poesy, ' Come back; thou art my comforter.'
COME back, come back, sweet spirit,
I miss thee in my dreams ;
I miss thee in the laughing bowers
And by the gushing streams.
The sunshine hath no gladness,
The harp no joyous tone —
Oh, darkly glide the moments by
Since thy soft light has flown.
Come back, come back, sweet spirit,
As in the glorious past,
When the halo of a brighter world
Was round my being cast ;
When midnight had no darkness,
When sorrow smiled through tears,
And life's blue sky seemed bowed in love,
To bless the coming years.
Come back, come back, sweet spirit,
Like the glowing flowers of spring,
Ere Time hath snatched the last pure wreath
From Fancy's glittering wing ;
Ere the heart's increasing shadows
Refuse to pass away,
And the silver cords wax thin which bind
To heaven the weary clay.
Come back, thou art my comforter :
What is the world to me ]
Its cares that live, its hopes that die,
Its heartless revelry ?
Mine, mine, oh blessed spirit !
The inspiring draught-be mine,
Though words may ne'er reveal how ueep
My worship at thy shrine.
Come back, thou holy spirit,
By the b!iss thou mayst impart,
Or by the pain thine absence gives
A deeply stricken heart.
Come back, as comes the sunshine
Upon the sobbing sea,
And every roaming thought shall vow
Allegiance to thee.
ANNA PEYRE DINNIES.
MRS. DINNIES is a daughter of Mr. Justice
Shacklefurd, of South Carolina, and was edu
cated at a school in Charleston conducted by
the daughters of Dr. Ramsay, the historian.
]n 1830 she was married to Mr. John C. Din-
nies, then of St. Louis, where she resided
until the recent removal of Mr. Dinnies to
New Orleans. Mrs. Hale, in her Ladies'
Wreath, states that she became engaged in
a literary correspondence with Mr. Dinnies
more than four years before their union, and
that they never met until one week before
their marriage. " The contract was made
solely from sympathy and congeniality of
mind and taste ; and that in their estimate
of each other they were not disappointed,
may be inferred from the tone of her songs."
The greater part of the poems of Mrs. Din
nies appeared originally in various maga
zines under the signature of "Moina." In
1846 she published in a richly illustrated vol
ume entitled The Floral Year, one hundred
compositions, arranged in twelve groups, to
illustrate that number of bouquets, gathered
in the different months. Her pieces celebra
ting the domestic affections are marked by
unusual grace and tenderness, and some of
them are worthy of the most elegant poets.
WEDDED LOVE.
COME, rouse thee, dearest! — 'tis not well
To let the spirit brood
Thus darkly o'er the cares that swell
Life's current to a flood.
As bro >ks, and torrents, rivers, all
Increase the gulf in which they fall,
Such thoughts, by gathering up the rills
Of lesser griefs, spread real ills,
And with their gloomy shades conceal
The landmarks Hope would else reveal.
Come, rouse thee, now : I know thy mind,
And would its strength awaken ;
Proud, gifted, noble, ardent, kind —
Strange thou shouldst be thus shaken !
But rouse afresh each energy,
And be what Heaven intended thee ;
Throw from thy thoughts this wearying weight,
And prove thy spirit firmly great:
I would not see thee bend below
The angry storms of earthly wo.
Full well I know the generous soul
Which warms thee into life —
Each spring which can its powers control,
Familiar to thy wife ;
For deemst thou she had stooped to bind
Her fate unto a common mind!
The eagle-like ambition, nursed
From childhood in her heart, had first
Consumed, with its Promethean flame,
The shrine — then sunk her soul to shame.
Then rouse thee, dearest, from the dream
That fetters now thy powers :
Shake off this gloom — Hope sheds a beam
To gild eacli cloud which lowers ;
And though at present seems so far
The wished-for goal — a guiding star,
With peaceful ray, would light thee on,
Until its utmost bounds be won :
That quenchless ray thou 'It ever prove
In fond, undying wedded love.
THE WIFE.
I COULD have stemmed misfortune's tide,
And borne the rich one's sneer,
Have braved the haughty glance of pride,
Nor shed a single tear ;
I could have smiled on every blow
From life's full quiver thrown,
While I might gaze on thee, and know
I should not be « alone."
I Could — I think I could have brooked,
E'en for a time, that thou
Upon my fading face hadst looked
With less of love than now ;
For then I should at least have felt
The sweet hope still my own
To win thee back, and, whilst I dwelt
On earth, not been " alone."
But thus to see, from day to day,
Thy brightening eye and cheek,
And watch thy life-sands waste away,
Unnumbered, slowly, meek;
To meet thy smiles of tenderness,
And catch the feeble tone
Of kindness, ever breathed to bless,
And feel, I '11 be " alone ;"
To mark thy strength each hour decay,
And yet thy hopes grow stronger,
As, filled with heavenward trust, they say
"Earth may not claim thee longer;"
Nay, dearest, 'tis too much — this heart
Must break when thou art gono ;
It must not be ; we may not part :
I could not live " alone '•"
ANNA PEYRE DINNIES.
209
EMBLEMS.
Finsr take a feather, and lay it upon
The stream that is rippling by :
With the current, behold, in a moment 'tis gone,
Unimpressive and light as a sigh ;
Then take thee a clear and precious stone.
And on the same stream place it :
Oh ! mark how the water on which it is thrown,
In its bosom will quickly encase it !
Or take a crystal, or stainless glass ;
With a crayon upon it then trace
A sentence, or line, and watch how 'twill pass —
A breath will its beauty efface;
Then take a diamond, as pure as 'tis bright,
And write some modest token :
Mid heat or cold, in shade, in light,
'Twill last till the crystal is broken.
And thus with the tablet of woman's pure heart,
WThen the vain and the idle may try
To leave their impressions, they swiftly depart,
Like the feather, the scroll, and the sigh ;
But once be inscribed on that tablet a name,
And an image of genius and worth,
Through the changes of life it will still be the same,
Till that heart is removed from the earth.
THE TRUE BALLAD OF THE WANDERER.
A MAIDEN* in a southern bower
Of fragrant vines and citron-trees,
To charm the pensive twilight hour,
Flung wild her thoughts upon the breeze;
To Cupid's ear unconscious telling
The fitful dream her bosom swelling,
Till Echo softly on it dwelling,
Revealed the urchin, bold and free,
Repealing thus her minstrelsy :
" Away, away ! by brook and fountain,
Where the wild deer wanders free,
O'er sloping dale and swelling mountain,
Still my fancy follows thee ;
Where the lake its bosom spreading,
Where the breeze its sweets is shedding,
Where thy buoyant steps are treading,
There — where'er the spot may be —
There my thoughts are following thee !
" In the forest's dark recesses,
Where the fawn may fearless stray ;
In the cave no sunbeam blesses
With its first or parting ray ;
Where the birds are blithely singing,
Where the flowers are gayly springing,
Where the bee its course is winging,
There, if there thou now mayst be,
Anxious Thought is following thee !
" In the lowly peasant's cot,
Quiet refuge of content ;
In the sheltered, grass-grown spot,
Resting, when with travel spent,
Where the vine its tendrils curling,
Where the trees their boughs are furling,
Where the streamlet clear is purling,
There, if there thou now mayst be,
There my spirit follows thee !
" In the city's busy mart,
Mingling with its restless crowd ;
Mid the miracles of art,
Classic pile, and column proud ,
O'er the ancient ruin sighing,
When the sun's last ray is dying,
Or to fashion's vortex flying,
Even there, if thou mayst be,
There my thoughts must follow thee '
" In the revel — in the dance —
W'ith the firm, familiar friend —
Or where Thespian arts entrance,
Making mirth and sadness blend ;
Where the living pageant glowing,
O'er thy heart its spell is throwing,
Mimic life in '•alto' showing,
There, beloved, if thou mayst be,
There, still there, I follow thee !
" When the weary day is over,
And thine eyes in slumber close,
Still, oh ! still, inconstant rover,
Do I charm thee to repose ;
With the shades of night descending
With thy guardian spirits blending,
To thy sleep sweet visions lending,
There, e'en there, true love may be,
There and thus am I with thee !"
Months and seasons rolled away,
And the maiden's cheek was pale ;
When, as bloomed the buds of May,
Cupid thus resumed the tale :
" Over land and sea returning,
Wealth, and power, and beauty spurning.
Love within his true heart burning,
Comes the wanderer wild and free,
Faithful maiden, back to thee !"
LOVE'S MESSENGERS.
YE little Stars, that twinkle high
In the dark vault of heaven,
Like spangles on the deep blue sky,
Perhaps to you 'tis given
To shed your lucid radiance now
Upon my absent loved one's brow
Ye fleecy Clouds, that swiftly glide
O'er Earth's oft-darkened way,
Floating along in grace and pride,
Perhaps your shadows stray
E'en now across the starry light
That guides my wanderer forth to-night
Ye balmy Breezes sweeping by,
And shedding freshness round,
Ye, too, may haply as ye fly,
With health and fragrance crowned,
Linger a moment, soft and light,
To sport amid his tresses bright 7
Then Stars, and Clouds, and Breezes, bear
My heart's best wish to him ;
And say the feelings glowing there
Nor time nor change can dim ;
That be success or grief his share,
My love still brightening shall appear.
ANN S. STEPHENS.
(Born 1813).
MRS. STEPHENS is well known as one of
tne most spirited and popular of our maga-
zinists. She was born in Derby, Connecti
cut, in 1811, and in 1831 was married to Mr.
Edward Stephens, of Portland, who in 1835
commenced the publication of the Portland
Magazine, of which she was two years the
editress. In 1837 she removed to New York,
and she has since been a writer for The La
dies' Companion, Graham's Magazine, The
Ladies' National Magazine. The Columbian
Magazine, and other periodicals of the same
character. Her tales and sketches would
probably fill a dozen common duodecimo vol
umes. Her longest poem, entitled The Po
lish Boy, was first published in 1839. There
has been no collectiDn either of her poems or
of her prose writings.
THE OLD APPLE-TREE.
I AM thinking of the homestead,
With its low and sloping roof,
And the maple boughs that shadowed it
With a green and leafy woof;
I am thinking of the lilac-trees,
That shook their purple plumes,
And, when the sash was open,
Shed fragrance through the rooms.
I am thinking of the rivulet,
With its cool and silvery flow,
Of the old gray rock that shadowed it,
And the peppermint below.
I am not sad nor sorrowful,
But memories will come;
So leave me to my solitude,
And let me think of home.
There was not around my birthplace
A thicket or a flower,
But childish game or friendly face
Has given it a power
To haunt me in my after-life,
And be with me again —
A sweet and pleasant memory
Of mingled joy and pain.
But the old and knotted apple-tree,
That stood beneath the hill,
My heart can never turn to it
But with a pleasant thrill.
Oh, what a dreamy life I led
Beneath its old green shade,
Whore the daisies and the butter-cups
A pleasant carpet made !
'Twas a rough old tree in spring-time,
When, with a blustering sound,
The wind came hoarsely sweeping
Along the frosty ground.
15 ut. when there rose a rivalry
'Tween clouds and pleasant weather,
Till the sunshine anil the raindrops
Came laughing down together ;
That patriarch old apple-tree
Enjoyed the lovely strife;
The sap sprang lightly through its veins,
And circled into life:
A cloud of pale and tender buds
Burst o'er each rugged bough;
And amid the starting verdure
The robins made their vow.
That tree was very beautiful
When all its leaves were green,
And rosy buds lay opening
Amid their tender sheen :
When the bright, translucent dewdrops
Shed blossoms as they fell,
And melted in their fragrance
Like music in a shell.
It was greenest in the summer-time,
When cheerful sunlight wove
Amid its thrifty leafiness
A warm and glowing love ;
When swelling fruit blushed ruddily
To Summer's balmy breath,
And the laden boughs drooped heavily
To the greensward underneath.
'Twas brightest in a rainy day,
When all the purple west
Was piled with fleecy storm-clouds
That never seemed at rest ;
When a cool and lulling melody
Fell from the dripping eaves,
And soft, warm drops came pattering
Upon the restless leaves.
But oh, the scene was glorious
When clouds were lightly riven,
Arid there above my valley home
Came out the bow of heaven —
And in its fitful brilliancy
Hung quivering on high,
Like a jewelled arch of paradise
Reflected through the sky.
210
A. R. ST. JOHN.
211
I am thinking of the footpath
My constant visits made,
Between the dear old homestead
And that leafy apple shade ;
Where the flow of distant waters
Came with a tinkling sound,
Like the revels of a fairy band,
Beneath the fragrant ground.
I haunted it at eventide,
And dreamily would lie *
And watch the crimson twilight
Come stealing o'er the sky ;
'Twas sweet to see its dying gold
Wake up the dusky leaves —
To hear the swallows twittering
Beneath the distant eaves.
I have listened to the music —
A low, sweet minstrelsy,
Breathed by a lonely night-bird
That haunted that old tree —
Till my heart has swelled with feelings
For which it had no name —
A yearning love of poesy,
A thirsting after fame.
I kave gazed up through the foliage
With dim and tearful eyes,
And with a holy reverence
Dwelt on the changing skies,
Till the burning stars were peopled
With forms of spirit birth,
And I 've almost heard their harp-strings
Reverberate on earth.
A. R. ST. JOHN.
MRS. ST. JOHN, formerly Miss MUNROE,
was bom in the vicinity of Boston, and in
1826 was married to Mr. J. R. St. John. She
has for several years resided in Brooklyn,
New York. She is said to be a voluminous
writer, and she has been a contributor, under
her name, to the Democratic Review and oth
er literary miscellanies.
MEDUSA.
FROM AN ANTIQUE GEM.
FATED sister of the three !
Mortal, though a deity ;
Superhuman beauty thine,
Demon goddess, power divine !
Thou a mortal life didst share,
Thou a human death didst bear;
Yet thy soul supremely free
Shrank not from its destiny :
And the life-drops from thy head,
On Libyan sands which Perseus shed,
Sprang, a scourging race, from thee,
Fell types of artful mystery.
Thou wast the victim of dire rage,
Minerva's vengeance to assuage,
And thy locks like molten gold,
Sheltering love in every fold,
Transformed into the serpent's lair
Tnat writhe and hiss in thy despair.
Fatal beauty, thou dost seem
The phantom of some fearful dream ;
Extremes of horror and of love
Alternate o'er our senses move,
As, wrapt and spell-bound, we survey
The fearful coils which round thee play,
And mark thy mild, enduring smile,
Lit by no mortal fire the while.
Formed to attract all eyes to thee,
And yet their withering light to be,
With some mysterious, powerful charm
That can the sternest will disarm,
The color from the warm cheek steal,
The life-blood in the heart congeal,
Or petrify with wild dismay
The boldest gazer's human clay —
This is a terrible ministry
For one with such a destiny.
Oh couldst thou unto mortals give
Thy strength to suffer, grace to live,
Teach them with ever-heavenward eye
The direst chances to defy,
Wrapt in the grandeur of a soul
To meet the finite and control —
This thy dread mission would unseal —
This thy mysterious self reveal.
In vain we wonder what thou art — •
Whether thou hast a human heart ;
Whether thou feelest scorpion stings
From shadowy troops Repentance brings
In never still or slumbering bands
Upon the spirit's arid sands;
Whether Regret's more gentle forms,
Long brooding, come at length in storms;
Whether the taunts of flying Hope
Doom thee without the gates to grope —
We know not — we shall never know —
Night hides in gloom thy cause of wo.
But if no voice of thine complains
While braving all such human pains,
Just is thy claim with gods to be —
Their aegis and dread mystery.
SARAH LOUISA P. SMITH.
(Born 1811— Died 1842).
Miss HICKMAN, afterward Mrs. SMITH, was
born in Detroit on the thirtieth of June, 1811,
at which time her grandfather, Major-Gen-
eral Hull — whose patriotism and misfortunes
are at leng:h beginning to be justly appreci
ated by the people — was governor of Michi
gan. While a child she accompanied her
nuther to the home of her funily, in New
ton, Massachusetts, where she was carefully
educa ed. She cc^uired knowledge with ex
traordinary facility, and when but thirteen
year> of age her compositions were compared
to those of Kirke White and others whose
e..rly maturity is the subject of some of the
most interesting chapters in literary history.
1 i her eighteenth year she was married to
Mr. Samuel Jenks Smith, then editor of a
periidical in Providence, where he soon af-
t.T published a collection of her poems, in a
volume of two hundred and fifty duodecimo
pages, many of the pieces in which were
written as it was passing through the press.
In 1829 Mr. and Mrs. Smith removed to Cin
cinnati, where they resided nearly two years,
and here she continued to write, with a sort
of improvisatorial ease, but with increasing
elegance and a constantly deepening tone of
reflection, until her health was too much de
cayed, and then she returned to New York,
where, on the twelfth of February, 1832, she
died, in the twenty-first year of her age. Her
husband was for several years connected with
the press in this city, and died while on a
voyage to Europe in 1842.
The poems of Mrs. Smith are interesting
chiefly as the productions of a very youthful
author. She wrote with grace and spright-
liness, and sometimes with feeling ; but there
is little in her writings that would survive
its connexion with her history.
THE HUMA*
FLY on ! nor touch thy wing, bright bird,
Too near our shaded earth,
Or the warbling, now so sweetly heard,
May lose its note of mirth.
Fly on — nor seek a place of rest
In the home of "care-worn things;"
'T would dim the light of thy shining crest
And thy brightly burnished wings,
To dip them where the waters glide
That flow from a troubled earthly tide.
The fields of upper air are thine,
Thy place where stars shine free ;
I would thy home, bright one, were mine,
Ab >ve life's stormy sea !
[ would never wander, bird, like thee,
So near this place again,
With wing and spirit once light and free —
They should wear no more the chain
With which thev are bound and fettered here,
For ever struggling for skies more clear.
There are many things like thee, bright bird,
Hopes as thy plumage gay ;
Our air is with them for ever stirred,
But still in air they stay.
And happiness, like thee, fair one,
* A bird peculiar to the Ea=t. Tt i* supposed to fly con
stantly in the air, and never tou h the ground.
Ts ever hovering o'er,
But rests in a land of brighter sun,
On a waveless, peaceful shore,
And stoops to lave her weary wings
Where the fount of " living waters" springs.
WHITE ROSES.
THEY were gathered for a bridal :
I knew it by their hue —
Fair as the summer moonlight
Upon the sleeping dew.
From their fair and fairy sisters
They were borne, without a sigh,
For one remembered evening
To blossom and to die.
They were gathered for a bridal,
And fastened in a wreath ;
But purer were the roses
Than the heart that lay beneath ;
Yet the beaming eye was lovely,
And the coral lip was fair,
And the gazer looked and asked not
For the secret hidden there.
They were gathered for a bridal,
Where a thousand torches glistened,
When the holy words were spoken,
And the false and faithless listened
212
SARAH LOUISA P. SMITH.
213
And answered to the vow
Which another heart had taken :
Yet he was present then —
The once loved, the forsaken !
They were gathered for a bridal,
And now, now they are dying,
And young Love at the altar
Of" broken faith is sighing.
Their summer life was stainless,
And not like hers who wore them
They are faded, and the farewell
Of beauty lingers o'er them !
STANZAS.
I WOULD not have thee deem my heart
Unmindful of those higher joys,
Regardless of that better part
Which earthly passion ne'er alloys.
I would not have thee think I live
Within heaven's pure and blessed light,
Nor feeling nor affection give
To Him who makes my pathway bright.
I would not chain to mystic creeds
A spirit fetterless and free ;
The beauteous path to heaven that leads
Is dimmed by earthly bigotry :
And yet, for all that earth can give,
And all it e'er can take away,
I would not have that spirit rove
One moment from its heavenward way.
1 would not that my heart were cold
And void of gratitude to Him
Who makes those blessings to unfold
Which by our waywardness grow dim.
I would not lose the cherished trust
Of things within the world to come —
The thoughts, that when their joys are dust,
The weary have a peaceful home.
For 1 have left the dearly loved,
The home, the hopes of other years,
And early in its pathway proved
Life's rainbow hues were formed of tears.
I shall not meet them here again,
Those loved, and lost, and cherished ones,
Bright links in young Affection's chain,
In Memory's sky unsetting suns.
But perfect in the world above,
Through suffering, wo, and trial here,
Shall glow the undiminished love
Which clouds and distance failed to sere :
But I have lingered all too long,
Thy kind remembrance to engage
And woven but a mournful song,
Wherewith to dim thy page.
THE FALL OF WARSAW.
THROUGH Warsaw there is weeping,
And a voice of sorrow now,
For the hero who is sleeping
With death upon his brow ;
The trumpet-tone will waken
No more his martial tread,
Nor the battle-ground be shaken
When his banner is outspread !
Now let our hymn
Float through the aisle,
Faintly and dim,
Where moonbeams smile ;
Sisters, let our solemn strain
Breathe a blessing o'er the slain.
There 's a voice of grief in Warsaw—
The mourning of the brave
O'er the chieftain who is gathered
Unto his honored grave !
Who now will face the foeman ?
Who break the tyrant's chain 1
Their bravest one lies fallen,
And sleeping with the slain.
Now let our hymn
Float through the aisle,
Faintly and dim,
Where moonbeams smile ;
Sisters, let our dirge be said
Slowly o'er the sainted dead !
There 's a voice of woman weeping,
In Warsaw heard to-night,
And eyes close not in sleeping,
That late with joy were bright ;
No festal torch is lighted,
No notes of music swell ;
Their country's hope was blighted
When that son of Freedom fell !
Now let our hymn
Float through the aisle,
Faintly and dim,
Where moonbeams smile ;
Sisters, let our hymn arise
Sadly to the midnight skies !
And a voice of love undying,
From the tomb of other years,
Like the west wind's summer sighing,
It blends with manhood's tears :
It whispers not of glory,
Nor fame's unfading youth,
But lingers o'er a story
Of young affection's truth.
Now let our hymn
Float through the aisle,
Faintly and dim,
Where moonbeams smile ,
Sisters, let our solemn strain
Breathe a blessing o'er the slain '
SOPHIA HELEN OLIVER.
(Born 1811).
THIS author was born in Lexington, Ken
tucky, in 1811, and in 1837 was married to
Dr. J. H. Oliver. The next year she removed
to Louisville, whence after a short time she
returned to Lexington, and in 1842 she went
to reside permanently in Cincinnati, in one
of the medical colleges of which city her hus
band is a professor. Her poems are spirited
and fanciful, but are sometimes imperfect in
rhythm and have other signs of carelessness.
"I MARK THE HOURS THAT SHINE."
Ix fair Italia's lovely land,
Deep in a garden bower,
A dial marks with shadowy hand
Each sun-illumined hour;
And on its fair, unsullied face
Is carved this flowing line,
(Some wandering bard has paused to trace :)
" 1 mark the hours that shine."
Oh ye who in a friend's fair face
Mark the defects alone,
Where many a sweet redeeming grace
Doth for each fault atone —
Go, from the speaking dial learn
A lesson all divine —
From faults that wound your fancy turn,
And " mark the hours that shine."
When bending o'er the glowing page
Traced by a godlike mind,
Whose burning thoughts from age to age
Shall light and bless mankind —
Why will ye seek mid gleaming gold
For dross in every line,
Dark spots upon the sun behold,
Nor " mark the hours that shine ]"
Oh ye who bask in Fortune's light,
Whose cups are flowing o'er,
Yet through the weary day and night
Still pine and sigh for more —
WThy will ye, when so richly blest,
Ungratefully repine.
Why sigh for joys still unpossessed,
Nor " mark the hours that shine'' ]
And ye who toil from morn till night
To earn your scanty bread,
Are there no blessings rich and bright
Around your pathway spread 1
The conscience clear, the cheerful heart,
The trust in love divine,
All bid desponding care depart;
And " mark the hours that shine."
And ye who bend o'er Friendship's tomb
In deep and voiceless wo,
Who sad'y feel no second bloom
\ our b ighted hearts can know —
Why will ye mourn o'er severed ties
Whiln friends around vou twine ]
Go ! yield your lost one to the skies,
And " mark the hours that shine."
Deep in the garden of each heart
There stands a dial fair,
And often is its snowy chart
Dark with the clouds of care.
Then go, and every shadow chase
That dims its light divine,
And write upon its gleaming face —
" I mark the hours that shine."
THE CLOUD-SHIP.
Lo ! over Ether's glorious realm
A cloud ship sails with favoring breeze ;
A bright form stands beside the helm,
And guides it o'er the ethereal seas.
Far streams on air its banner white,
Its swanlike pinions kiss the gale,
And now a beam of heaven's light
With glory gems the snowy sail
Perchance, bright bark, your snowy breast
And silver-tissued pinions wide,
Bear onward to some isle of rest
Pure spirits in life's furnace tried.
Oh ! could we stay each swelling sail
Of spotless radiance o'er thee hung,
And lift the bright, mysterious veil
O'er forms of seraph beauty flung —
How would our spirits long to mount
And float along the ethereal way,
To drink of life's unfailing fount,
And bathe in heaven's resplendent day !
But lo! the gold-tiara'd West
Unfolds her sapphire gates of light ;
While Day's proud monarch bows his crest,
And bids the sighing world Good-night.
And now the cloud ship flies along,
Her wings with gorgeous colors dressed,
And Fancy hears triumphant song
Swell from her light-encircled breast —
As to the wide unfolded gate,
The brilliant portal of the skies,
She bears her bright, immortal freight,
The glorious soul that never dies !
214
-
SOPHIA HELEN OLIVER.
215
THE SHADOWS.
THEY are gliding, they are gliding,
O'er the meadows green and gay ;
Like a fairy troop they 're riding
Through the breezy woods away ;
On the mountain-tops they linger
When the sun is sinking low,
And they point with giant finger
To the sleeping vale below.
They are flitting, they are flitting,
O'er the waving corn and rye,
And now they're calmly sitting
'Neath the oak-tree's branches high
And where the tired reaper
Hath sought the sheltering tree,
They dance above the sleeper
In light fantastic glee.
They are creeping, they are creeping,
Over valley, hill, and stream,
Like the thousand fancies sweeping
Through a youthful poet's dream.
Now they mount on noiseless pinions
With the eagle to the sky —
Soar along those broad dominions
Where the stars in beauty lie.
They are dancing, they are dancing,
Where our country's banner bright
In the morning beam is glancing
With its stars and stripes of light ;
And where the glorious prairies
Spread out like garden bowers,
They fly along like fairies,
Or sleep beneath the flowers.
They are leaping, they are leaping,
Where a cloud beneath the moon
O'er the lake's soft breast is sleeping,
Lulled by a pleasant tune ;
And where the fire is glancing
At twilight through the hall,
Tall spectre forms are dancing
Upon the lofty wall.
They are lying, they are lying,
Where the solemn yew-tree waves,
And the evening winds are sighing
In the lonely place of graves;
And their noiseless feet are creeping
With slow and stealthy tread,
Where the ancient church is keeping
Its watch above the dead.
Lo, they follow ! — lo, they follow,
Or before flit to and fro
By mountain, stream, or hollow,
Wherever man may go !
And never for another
Will the shadow leave his side —
More faithful than a brother,
Or all the world beside.
Ye remind me, ye remind me,
0 Shadows pale and cold !
That friends to earth did bind me,
Now sleeping in the mould ;
The young, the loved, the cherished,
Whose mission early done,
In life's bright noontide perished
Like shadows in the sun.
The departed, the departed —
I greet them with my tears ;
The true and gentle-hearted,
The friends of earlier years.
Their wings like shadows o'er me
Methinks are spread for aye,
Around, behind, before me,
To guard the devious way.
MINISTERING SPIRITS.
THEY are winging, they are winging,
Through the thin blue air their way ;
Unseen harps are softly ringing
Round about us, night and day.
Could we pierce the shadows o'er us,
And behold that seraph band,
Long-lost friends would bright before ua
In angelic beauty stand.
Lo ! the dim blue mist is sweeping
Slowly from my longing eyes,
And my heart is upward leaping
With a deep and glad surprise.
I behold them — close beside me,
Dwellers of the spirit-land ;
Mists and shades alone divide me
From that glorious seraph band.
Though life never can restore me
My sad bosom's nestling dove,
Yet my blue-eyed babe bends o'er me
With her own sweet smile of love;
And the brother, long departed,
Who in being's summer died —
Warm, and true, and gentle-hearted —
Folds his pinions by my side.
Last called from us, loved and dearest —
Thou the faultless, tried, and true,
Of all earthly friends sincerest,
Mother — I behold thee too !
Lo ! celestial light is gleaming
Round thy forehead pure and mild,
And thine eyes with love are beaming
On thy sad, heart-broken child!
Gentle sisters there are bending,
Blossoms culled from life's parterre;
And my father's voice ascending,
Floats along the charmed air.
Hark ! those thrilling tones Elysian
Faint and fainter die away,
And the bright seraphic vision
Fades upon my sight for aye.
But I know they hover round rm-
In the morning's rosy light,
And their unseen forms surround me
All the deep and solemn night.
Yes, they 're winging — yes, they 're winding
Through the thin blue air their way :
Spirit-harps are softly ringing
Round about us night and uay.
MARY E. LEE.
(Born 1813— Died 1849.)
Miss MART E. LEE, a daughter of Mr.
William Lee, and niece of the late Judge
Thomas Lee, of Charleston, South Carolina,
has been for many years a frequent contribu
tor to the literary miscellanies, in both prose
and verse. Among her best compositions
are several poems, in ihe ballad style, found
ed on southern traditions, in which she has
shown dramatic skill, and considerable abil
ity in description. One of the best of these
is the Indian's Revenge, a Legend of Toccoa,
in Four Parts, printed in the Southern Lit
erary Messenger for 1846. Miss Lee is also
the author of some spirited translations.
THE POKTS.
THE poets — the poets —
Those giants of the earth :
In mighty strength they tower above
The men of common birth •
A noble race — they mingle not
Among the motley throng,
But move, with slow and measured steps,
To music-notes along.
The poets — the poets —
What conquests they can boast !
Without one drop of life-blood spilt,
They rule a world's wide host ;
Their stainless banner floats unharmed
From age to lengthened age ;
And history records their deeds
Upon her proudest page.
The poets — the poets —
How endless is their fame !
Death, like a thin mist, comes, yet leaves
No shadow on each name ;
But as yon starry gems that gleam
In evening's crystal sky,
So have they won, in memory's depths,
An immortality.
The poets — the poets —
Who doth not linger o'er
The glorious volumes that contain
Their bright and spotless lore !
They charm us in the saddest hours,
Our richest joys they feed ;
And love for them has grown to be
A universal creed.
The poets — the poets —
Those kingly minstrels dead,
Well may we twine a votive wreath
Around each honored head :
No tribute is too high to give
Those crowned ones among men.
The pools ! the true poets !
Thanks be to God for them !
AN EASTERN LOVE-SONG.
AWAKE, my silver lute;
String all thy plaintive wires,
And as the fountain gushes free,
So let thy memory chant for me
The theme that never tires.
Awake, my liquid voice ;
Like yonder timorous bird,
Why dost thou sing in trembling fear,
As if by some obtrusive ear
Thy secret should be heard 1
Awake, my heart — yet no !
As Cedron's golden rill,
Whose changeless echo singeth o'er
Notes it had heard long years before,
So thou art never still.
My voice! my lute! my heart!
Spring joyously above
The feeble notes of lower earth,
And let thy richest tones have birth
Beneath the touch of love.
THE LAST PLACE OF SLEEP.
LAY me not in green wood lone,
Where the sad wind maketh moan,
Where the sun hath never shone,
Save as if in sadness ;
Nor, I pray tbee, let me be
Buried 'neath the chill, cold sea,
Where the waves, tumultuous, free,
Chafe themselves to madness.
But in yon enclosure small,
Near the churchyard's mossy wall,
WThere the dew and sunlight fall,
I would have my dwelling ;
Sure there are some friends, I wot,
Who would make that narrow spot
Lovely as a garden plot,
With rich perfumes swelling.
216
CATHERINE H. ESLING.
217
Let no costly stone be brought,
Where a stranger's hand hath wrought
Vain inscription, speaking naught
To the true affections ;
But, above the quiet bed,
Where I rest my weary head,
Plant those buds whose perfumes shed
Tenderest recollections.
Then, as every year the tide
Of strong death bears to my side
Those who were by love allied —
As the flowers of summer —
Sweet to think, that from the mould
Of my body, long since cold.
Plants of beauty shall enfold
Every dear new comer.
CATHERINE H. ESLING.
(Born 1812).
Miss CATHERINE H. WATERMAN was born
in Philadelphia, in 1812 ; and under her mai
den name she became known as an author by
many graceful and tender effusions in the
periodicals. In 1840 she was married tc
Mr. Esling, a shipmaster of her native city
BROTHER, COME HOME.
COME home —
Would I could send my spirit o'er the deep,
Would I could wing it like a bird to thee,
To commune with thy thoughts, to fill thy sleep
With these unwearying words of melody :
Brother, come home.
Come home —
Come to the hearts that love thee, to the eyes
That beam in brightness but to gladden thine ;
Come where fond thoughts like holiest incense rise,
Where cherished memory rears her altar's shrine.
Brother, come home.
Come home —
Come to the hearth-stone of thy earlier days,
Come to the ark, like the o'erwearied dove ;
Come with the sunlight of thy heart's warm rays,
Come to the fireside circle of thy love :
Brother, come home.
Come home —
It is not home without thee : the lone seat
Is st.ill unclaimed where thou were wont to be,
In every echo of returning feet,
In vain we list for what should herald thee :
Brother, come home.
Come home —
We've nursed for thee the sunny buds of spring,
Watched every germ the full-blown flowers rear,
Seen o'er their bloom the chilly winter bring
Its icy garlands, and thou art not here :
Brother, come home.
Come home —
Would I could send my spirk o'er the deep,
Would I could wing it like a bird to thee —
To commune with thy thoughts, to fill thy sleep
With these unwearying words of melody :
Brother, come home !
HE WAS OUR FATHER'S DARLING
HE was our father's darling,
A bright and happy boy —
His life was like a summer's day
Of innocence and joy ;
His voice, like singing waters,
Fell softly on the ear,
So sweet, that hurrying echo
Might linger long to hear.
He was our mother's cherub,
Her life's untarnished light —
Her blessed joy by morning,
Her visioned hope by night ;
His eyes were like the daybeams
That brighten all below ;
His ringlets like the gathered gold
Of sunset's gorgeous glow.
He was our sister's plaything,
A very child of glee,
That frolicked on the parlor floor,
Scarce higher than our knee ;
His joyous bursts of pleasure
Were wild as mountain wind ;
His laugh, the free, unfettered laugh
Of childhood's chainless mind.
He was our brothers' treasure,
Their bosom's only pride —
A fair depending blossom
By their protecting side :
A thing to watch and cherish,
With varying hopes and fears —
To make the slender, trembling reed
Their staff for future years.
He is — a blessed angel.
His home is in the sky ;
He shines among those living lights,
Beneath his Maker's eye :
A freshly gathered lily.
A bud of eaily doom,
Hath beeii transplanted from the earth.
To bloom beyond the tomb.
CAROLINE M. SAWYER.
(Born 1812).
CAROLINE M. FISHER, now Mrs. SAWYER,
was born at the close of the year 1812, in
Newton, Massachusetts, where she resided
until her marriage with the Rev. T. J. Saw
yer — one of the most eminent scholars and
divines of the Universalist denomination — in
September, 1832, when she removed to the
city of New York. At the end of about fif
teen years Mr. Sawyer was chosen presi
dent of the Universalist seminary at Clinton
in Oneida county, and of this pleasant vil
lage he became a resident, upon his assump
tion of the office.
Mrs. Sawyer was very carefully and thor
oughly educated at home, under the care of
an invalid uncle whose life had been passed
in pursuits of science and literature. With
aim she became a favorite, and to his early
apprehension of her abilities and anxiety for
their full development she is indebted for her
line taste and large knowledge, particularly
in foreign languages and their most celebra
ted authors. She commenced the composi
tion of verse at an early age, but published
little until after her marriage. Since then
she has written much for various reviews
and other miscellanies, besides several vol
umes of tales, sketches, and essays, for chil
dren and youth, which would probably have
been much more generally known if they
had not come before the public through de
nominational channels of publication. She
has also made numerous translations from
the best German literature, in prose and verse,
in which she has evinced a delicate appreci
ation of the originals and a fine command of
her native language.
The poems of Mrs. Sawyer are numerous
— sufficient for several volumes — though
there has been published no collection of
them. They are serious and of a fresh and
vigorous cast of thought, occasionally em
bodied in forms of the imagination or illus
trated by a chaste and elegant fancy.
THE BLIND GIRL.
CROWN her with garlands! mid her sunny hair
Twine the rich blossoms of the laughing May,
The lily, snowdrop, and the violet fair,
And queenly rose, that blossoms for a day.
Haste, maidens, haste ! the hour brooks no delay —
The bridal veil of soft transparence bring ;
And as ye wreathe the gleaming locks away,
O'er their rich wealth its folds of beauty fling —
She seeth now !
Bring forth the lyre of sweet and solemn sound,
Let its rich music be no longer still ;
Wake its full chords, till, sweetly floating round,
Its thrilling echoes all our spirits fill.
Joy for the lovely ! that her lips no more
To notes of sorrow tune their trembling breath ;
Joy for the young, whose starless course is o'er ;
16 ! sing paeans for the bride of Death !
She seeth now !
She has been dark ; through all the weary years,
Since first her spirit into being woke,
Through those dim orbs that ever swam ii_ tears,
No ray of sunlight ever yet hath broke.
Silent and dark ! herself the sweetest fiowei
That ever blossomed in an earthly home,
Un uttered yearnings ever were her dower, [come.
And voiceless prayers that light at length might
She seeth now !
A lonely lot ! yet oftentimes a sad
And mournful pleasure filled her heart and brain,
And beamed in smiles — e'er sweet, but never glad,
As Sorrow smiles when mourning winds complain.
Nature's great voice had ever for her soul
A thrilling power the sightless only know;
While deeper yearnings through her being stole,
For light to gild that being's darkened flow.
She seeth now!
Strike the soft harp, then ! for the cloud hath past,
With all its darkness, from her sight away ;
Beauty hath met her waiting eyes at last,
And light is hers within the land of day.
'Neath the cool shadows of the tree of life,
Where bright the fount of youth immortal springs,
Far from this earth, with all its weary strife,
Her pale brow fanned by shining seraphs' wings,
She seeth now !
Ah, yes, she seeth ! through yon misty veil,
Methinks e'en now her angel-eyes look down,
While round me falls' a light all soft and pale —
The moonlight lustre of her starry crown ;
And to my heart, as earthly sounds retire,
Come the low echoes of celestial words,
Like sudden music from some haunted lyre,
That strangely swells when none awake its chorda
But, hush ! 'tis past; the light, the sound, are o'er*
Joy for the maiden ! she is dark no more !
She seeth now !
218
CAROLINE M. SAWYER.
219
INFIDELITY AND RELIGION.
Two Spirits o'er an open grave were bending,
Their gaze far down its gloomy chamber sending.
One, with a brow of stern and cold despair,
And sable weeds and cypress in his hair,
Turned not his eyes, so fixed and dark with wo,
From the cold pit, which fearful yawned below.
The other stood with garments pure and white
As deck the dwellers of the land of light:
Her placid brow was as an angel's fair,
While ca'm and joyous was her gentle air;
And though within the grave she dropped a tear,
Her upturned eye was still serene and clear.
" Life !" said the Spirit with the brow of gloom,
His arm outstretching o'er the gaping tomb —
" "Pis a deep and sullen river,
Ro.ling slowly to the sea,
There to be engu'fed for ever
In a dark eternity !"
" Nay," said the shining one, with upturned eye,
And smile so clear it mirrored back the sky —
"Tis a sunny streamlet gliding
Gently on to seek its goal ;
There in God's own bosom hiding —
Bright and pure, a white-robed soul."
But the dark Spirit's gloomy voice again
Doled out in slow and melancholy strain :
u 'T is a mournful weed, that groweth
Lone and friend less in the world,
Which a ghastly reaper moweth,
And 'tis to oblivion hurled!"
" Nay," the bright, gentle one replied once more,
And softer still the holy smile she wore —
"'Tis a starry flower upraising
Through a.l ill-s a trusting eye,
Evermore its Maker praising —
Fading here to bloom on high !"
Slowly the dark one sunk his gloomy brow,
As once again he murmured sad and low :
" 'T is a storm, for ever sweeping
O'er a bleak and barren heath ;
Tossing, surging, never sleeping,
Till it lull in endless death !"
" Nay !" and the hoping Spirit's hands were prest
In meek and holy rapture to her breast —
" 'T is a friendly rain, that showers
On a fair and pleasant land,
Where the darkest cloud that lowers
By the rainbow still is spanned!"
Stern was the gaze of sorrow and despair
That now was fixed upon the Spirit fair,
As, a last time, the hopeless waiter's burst
Of anguish came more drear than e'en at first :
" 'Tis a haunting vision, blended
Evermore with tears and pain :
'T is a dream, that best were ended ;
Life is false, and life is vain !"
Ceased the dark Spirit — and a sable cloud
O'er his set features folded like a shroud ;
Then slowly sank, as sinks the dying wave,
In the dark chambers of the yawning grave.
Silently closed the damp turf o'er his head,
And the stern Spirit, like the mortal dead,
Came not again from out his gloomy bed !
" Life !" said the shining one, as, stretching forth
Her long, fair arms, she blessed the teeming earth —
" Life is true, and life is real !
Life has worthy deeds for all ;
'Tis no vain and false ideal,
Ending with the shroud and pall.
Up and do, then, dreaming mortal !
With a strong heart toil away ;
Earth has cares, but heaven a portal
Opening up to endless day !"
She paused, and o'er her pure and spotless breast
Drew the soft drapery of her snowy vest ;
Her long, fair arms extended yet once more
To bless the earth she oft had blessed before ;
Then turned away to pour her heavenly light
In genial floods where all were else but night.
Still dwells she here, that child of heavenly birth —
Soothing the sorrows of the sons of earth ;
Drying the tears that dim the mourner's eye ;
Gently subduing Grief's desponding sigh ;
Winging with rapture e'en the parting breath,
And wreathing smiles around the lips of Death !
Blest be her path along life's rugged way !
Blest be her smiles which light the darkest day !
And blest the tears that, trusting still, she weeps,
Where the dark Spirit yet in silence sleeps !
THE VALLEY OF PEACE.
It was a beautiful conception of tlie Moravians togiv« to rural cemeto-
OH, come, let us go to the Valley of Peace !
There earth's weary cares to perplex us shall cease ;
WTe will stray through its solemn and far-spreading
shades,
Till twiligbt's last ray from each green hillock fades.
There s'.umber the friends whom we long must re
gret —
The forms whose mild beauty we can not forget ;
We will seek the low mounds where so softly they
sleep,
And will sit down and muse on the idols we weep :
But we will not repine that they're hid from our
eyes,
For we know they still live in a home in the skies ;
But we'll pray that, when life's weary journey
shall cease,
We may slumber with them in the Valley of Peace !
Oh, sad were our path through this valley of tears
If, when weary and wasted with toil and with years
No home were prepared where the pilgrim miurht
Mortality's cumbering vestments away ! [lay
But sadder, and deeper, a;id darker the gloom,
That would close o'er our way as we speed to tho
If Faith pointed not to that heavenly goal, [tomb,
Where the Sun of eternity beams on the soul !
Oh, who, mid the sorrows and changes of time.
E'er dreamed of that holier, that happier clime.
220
CAROLINE M. SAWYER.
But yearned for the hour of the spirit's release —
For a pillow of rest in the Valley of Peace !
Oh come, thou pale mourner, whose sorrowing gaze
Seems fixed on the shadows of long-vanished days,
Sad, sad is thy tale of bereavement and wo,
And thy spirit is weary of life's garish show !
Come here : I will show thee a haven of rest,
Where sorrow no longer invades the calm breast;
Where the spirit throws off its dull mantle of care,
And the robe is ne'er folded o'er secret despair !
Yet the dwelling is lonely, and silent, and cold,
And the soul may shrink back as its portals unfold ;
But a bright Star has dawned through the shades
of the east.
That will light up with beauty the Valley of Peace !
Thou frail child of error ! come hither and say,
Has the world yet a charm that can lure thee to
Ah, no ! in thine aspect are anguish and wo, [stay ]
And deep shame has written its name on thy brow.
Pooi outcast ! too long hast thou wandered forlorn,
In a path where thy feet are all gored with the thorn ;
Where thy breast by the fang of the serpent is stung,
And scorn on thy head by a cold world is flung !
Come here, and find rest from thy guilt and thy tears,
And a sleep sweet as that of thine innocent years ;
We will spread thee a couch where thy woes shall
all cease :
Oh, come and lie down in the Valley of Peace !
The grave, ah, the grave ! 'tis a mighty stronghold,
The weak, the oppressed, all are safe in its fold :
There Penury's toil-wasted children may come,
And the helpless, the houseless, at last find a home.
What myriads unnumbered have sought its repose,
Since the day when the sun on creation first rose ;
And there, till earth's latest, dread morning shall
break,
Shall its wide generations their last dwelling make :
But beyond is a world — how resplendently bright !
And all that have lived shall be bathed in its light.
We shall rise — we shall soar where earth's sorrows
shall cease.
Though our mortal clay rests in the Valley of
Peace !
THE BOY AND HIS ANGEL.
" OH, mother, I've been with an angel to-day !
I was out, all alone, in the forest at play,
Chasing after the butterflies, watching the bees,
And hearing the woodpecker tapping the trees;
So I played, and I played, till, so weary I grew,
I sat down to rest in the shade of a yew,
While the birds sang so sweetly high up on its top,
I held my breath, mother, for fear they would stop.
Thus a long while I sat, looking up to the sky,
And watching the clouds that went hurrying by,
When I heard a voice calling just over my head,
That sounded as if « Come, oh brother !' it said ;
And there, right over the top of the tree,
O mother, an angel was beckoning to me !
"And, 'Brother,' once more, 'come, oh brother!'
he cried,
And flew on light pinions close down by my side ;
And mother, oh, never was being so bright
As the one which then beamed on my wondering
His face was as fair as the de icate shell, [sight !
His hair down his shoulders in fair ringlets fell,
While his eyes resting on me, so melting with love,
Were as soft and as mild as the eyes of a dove.
And somehow, dear mother, I felt not afraid,
As his hand on my brow he caressingly laid,
And murmured so softly and gently to me,
' Come, brother, the angels are waiting for thee !'
" And then on my forehead he tenderly pressed
Such kisses — oh, mother, they thrilled through my
breast,
'As swiftly as lightning leaps down from on high,
When the chariot of God rolls along the black sky ;
While his breath, floating round me, was soft as
the breeze
That played in my tresses, and rustled the trees ;
At last on my head a deep blessing he poured,
Then plumed his bright pinions and upward he
soared —
And up, up he went, through the blue sky, so far,
He seemed to float there like a glittering star,
Yet still my eyes followed his radiant flight,
Till, lost in the azure, he passed from my sight.
Then, oh how I feared, as I caught the last gleam
Of his vanishing form, it was only a dream —
When soft voicesmurmured once more from the tree,
' Come, brother, the angels are waiting for thee !' "
Oh, pale grew that mother, and heavy her heart,
For she knew her fair boy from this world must
depart ;
That his bright locks must fade in the dust of the
tomb,
Ere the autumn winds withered the summer's rich
bloom.
Oh, how his young footsteps she watched, day by
day,
As his delicate form wasted slowly away,
Till the soft light of heaven seemed shed o'er his face,
And he crept up to die in her loving embrace !
" Oh, clasp me, dear mother, close, close to your
On that gentle pillow again let me rest ; [breast ;
Let me once more gaze up to that dear, loving eye,
And then, oh, methinks, I can willingly die.
Now kiss me, dear mother — oh, quickly — for see,
The bright, blessed angels are waiting for me !"
Oh, wild was the anguish that swept through her
breast,
As the long, frantic kiss on his pale lips she pressed,
And felt the vain search for his soft, pleading eye,
As it strove to meet hers ere the fair boy could die.
" I see you not, mother, for darkness and night
Are hiding your dear, loving face from my sight ;
But I hear your low sobbings : dear mother, good
The angels are ready to bear me on high. [by !
I will wait for you there ; but, oh, tarry not long,
Lest grief at your absence should sadden my song !"
He ceased, and his hands meekly clasped on hia
breast,
While his sweet face sank down on its pillow of
rest;
Then closing his eyes, now all rayless and dim,
WTcnt up with the angels that waited for him.
CAROLINE M. SAWYER
221
THE LADY OF LURLEI.*
A LEGEND OF THE RHINE.
!*SKKST thou the lad}7 on yonder steep,
Whose crags beetle over the billowy deep ?
Her robes of the sea-green waves are wove,
And her eyes are blue as the skies above :
Her golden tresses, like sunlight, roam
O'er a neck more pure than the wreathing foam,
As her long white arms on the breeze she flings,
And in sweet, low, silvery accents sings
To the sti'l, gray morning her strange wi'd lay —
Away, to the lady, good boatman, away !"
A film crept over the boatman's sight,
And his arm grew weak, and his cheek grew white,
As he saw the lady poised high in air,
With her sea-green robes and her flowing hair !
"Sir knight, 'twould peril our lives to ride,
In the stanchest boat, o'er this surging tide,
When yon wild lady at morn is seen
On Luriei's cliff, with her robes of green !
Beware ! for evil befalls the knight
Who dares to wish for a nearer sight !"
" Go, preach thy fears to the timid girl,
Or the craven coward, thou tremb ing churl !
The knight who the shock of an hundred fields
Has borne, to no fancied danger yields :
Then over the waves, with thy bounding skiff,
To the strange bright lady of Lurlei's c'.iff ;
And take, as thy guerdon, this golden chain —
For me, none peril their lives in vain !"
He took the chain, and he spake no more,
But his strong arm shook, as he grasped the oar,
And gave his bark to the rolling deep,
To ferry the knight to the fatal steep !
The skies grew black, and the winds blew high,
And ominous birds flew shrieking by,
And roaring surges piled up the strand
With a terrible wall as they nearcd the land.
" Back, back !" the boatman with white lips cried,
" Nor dare thus madly this fearful tide !"
But the brave knight turned with a dauntless brow,
And, bo!d y spurning the graceful prow,
Plunged fearlessly over the light skiff's side,
And eagerly breasted the foaming tide !
Strange faces arose to his troubled eye,
As the whiriing waters swept wildly by —
Fierce voices hissed in his failing ear,
And his stout frame trembled, but not with fear,
For his breath he held and his arm he strained,
Till the waves were passed and the shore was gained.
Then, swiftly scaling the steep ascent,
Before the lady he breathless bent !
He laid his head on her bosom fair,
His fingers toyed with her golden hair — •
Whi'e " Mine for ever," she wildly sung,
As round him her long white arms she flung !
" Bold knight, come down in the sunless deep,
Where peris warble and naiads sleep —
Come down and dwell with the ocean-maid,
Where the blight ne'er falls and the flowers ne'er
fade !"
* Lurlei is the name of a rocky cliff on the shores of
the Rhine.
She pressed her lips to his glowing cheek,
She lured him along the dangerous peak —
One moment they stood on the dizzy verge —
The next, sank down 'neath the sounding surge
The winds were hushed, and the waves were laid,
And insects small in the sunbeams played —
The boat returned to the distant shore,
But the knight and the lady were seen no more !
THE WIFE'S REMONSTRANCE.
OH, why are you sad when all others are gay '
Is earth darker now than in life's early day ?
Is the kind hand withdrawn that upheld us of
yore,
Or the bright, laughing sunshine around us no
more ?
No : earth is still smiling, and nature is clad
In all her old beauty — then why art thou sad ]
True, some friends, grown faithless, seem cold and
estranged,
But others are left us whose love is unchanged —
Whose hearts, through all seasons of good and
of ill,
Like the ivy around us cling faithfully still :
Let us cherish them deep in our hearts, and be
glad,
For oh, with such blessings how can we be sad !
You say we are poor ! — ah, I have not forgot
That to struggle with fortune is ofttimes our lot;
But think you that we are less happy than they
Who drag on mid splendor their wearisome day ?
For their wealth would you barter the bliss we
have had ]
Oh no ! then what need have our hearts to be sad ]
Why fear for the future ? — for nine years or more
We have managed to keep the gaunt wolf from
our door ;
And why, in the days yet to come, should our
state,
Though humble, be marked by a gloomier fate ?
Let us give God our thanks for the past, and be
glad-
How much more need have others, than we, to be
sad !
I know there are seasons when, strive as we will;
Presentiment whispers for ever of ill ;
There are dark-boding visions of trouble and pain,
That lurk in the heart till they madden the brain !
Wo, wo for that bosom ! it can not be glad —
Oh God, shield us well from such cause to be
sad!
Let us humbly hope on — and if dark be our way,
Remember that night is e'er followed by day ;
Though tempests and whirlwinds may rage through
the skies,
They will pass, and the sunbeams again meet our
eyes :
Let our hearts and our brows, then, in sunshine
be clad,
For God made us not to be gloomy and sad !
222
CAROLINE M. SAWYER.
MY SLEEPING CHILDREN.
YE sleep, ray children ! On your soft, blue eyes —
Those eyes that once, like summer sunlight glancing,
From rnorn till eve with joy seemed ever dancing,
A mournful slumber lies !
Ye sleep, but I — I wake to watch your rest ;
Yet not as erst, when, round your temples wreathing,
The light locks stirred at every gentle breathing
From your lull, quiet breast.
No more my finger on my lips I lay,
Lest so;ne rude soundjSome sudden footstep — jarring
Your litt.e couch, and the hushed stillness marring —
Shou.d chase your sleep away.
Ah, no ! the winds go moaning o'er your heads,
And the sweet dryads of the valley, winging
In airy circles, wild, shrill strains are singing
Above your grassy beds !
But ye awake not — they disturb not now:
And a vain gush of childlike grief comes o'er me,
As the dread memory, sudden sweeps before me,
That death is on your brow !
Oh, precious ones ! that seemed too fair to die —
My soft-eyed Mary, child of seraph sweetness :
Bright vision, vanished with a shadow's fleetness —
Why hast thou left me 1 — why ]
Wcrl weary, gentle dove, of this cold world 1
And didst thou long to rest thy little pinions
Far in those bright and beautiful dominions,
Where they at last are furled ]
Wert homesick, darling ] Could thy little heart
Yearn for a love more tender than we bore thee —
Yearn for a watch more fond and faithful o'er thee,
That thou shouldst hence depart ?
That thou shouldst hence,and leave rnehere behind
To fold thy little robes in silent anguish —
To dry my tears, then weep again — to languish
For what I can not find !
Had my low cradle-song no longer charms —
That cradle-song whose soft and plaintive numbers
Lulled thee each evening to thy peaceful slumbers —
To keep thee in my arms
And thou, my boy ! my beautiful — my own !
Twin cherub of the one who stands beside rne,
Grieving that we within the earth should hide thee,
And leave thee all alone —
Grieving that thou canst play with him no more ;
That, though his tears upon thy grave are falling,
Thy voice replies not to his mournful calling
Unheeded ne'er before !
Did the sweet cup of life already cloy,
That from thy lips, ere scarcely it was tasted —
Ere from its brim one sparkling gleam was wasted,
Thou laidst it down, my boy 1
J\ ay, wherefore question ? To my pleading vain,
No voice to still my spirit's restless yearning
No sweet rep'y, to soothe my heart's deep burning,
Comes from your graves again !
Ve were — ye art not ! Thus earth's bloom decays :
I watch the flowers 'neath Autumn's footstep dying,
Yet know the spring-breath, through the valleys
Each from its tomb will raise ! [sighing,
But ye — oh ye ! though soft the vernal rain,
The sweet spring showers stern winter's chain dis
solving —
May round you fall earth's loveliest flowers evolving,
Ye will not bloom again !
Though by the streams, and all the meadows o'er,
Mid woods and dells, the south's gay clarion ringing,
May peal, till life is everywhere upspringing,
Ye — ye will wake no more !
Nay, ye will wake ! not here, not here — but there,
In heaven ! Oh, there ye bloom e'en now — where
never
Falls the chill blight, and each sweet flower for ever
Lives beautiful and fair !
There shall I find you — stainless, pure, and bright,
As the pure seraph-eyes, whose myriad numbers
Are watching now, above your peaceful slumbers,
From the far zenith's height :
There shall I clasp you to my heart once more,
And feel your cheeks mine own with rapture pres
sing,
Till all my being thrills with your caressing,
And all its pain is o'er !
Dear ones, sleep on ! A low, mysterious tone,
Solemn yet sweet, my spirit's ear is filling —
Each wilder grief within my bosom stilling,
And hushing sorrow's moan.
It tells me that, no shadow on your brow,
Far from the clouds that closely round me gather,
Clasped on the bosom of the Good All-Father,
Ye 're blest and happy now.
Ay, blest and happy ! never more shall tears
Dim those sweet eyes; temptation ne'er shall round
you
Wind its dark coils, nor guilt nor falsehood wound
Through all your endless years. [you,
Farewell awhile ! Ye were my heart's delight —
Ye were sweet stars, my spirit's clouds dissolving,
Round which my heart was evermore revolving,
Like some fond satellite.
Ah, well I loved you — but I yield you up,
Without one murmur, at my Father's calling .
With childlike trust, though fast my tears are falling,
I drink the bitter cup.
I drink — for He, whom angels did sustain
In the dread hour when mortal anguish met him,
When friends forgot, and deadly foes beset him,
Stands by to soothe my pain.
I drink — for thou, 0 God, preparedst the draught
Which to my lips thy Father-hand is pressing .
I know 'neath ills oft lurks the deepest blessing —
Father, the cup is quaffed !
'Tis quaffed — and now, O Father, I restore
The little children thou in mercy sent me :
Sweet blessings were they, for a season lent me —
Take back thine own once more !
Yet, oh, forget not, Lord, thy child is weak :
The dregs are bitter which my lips are draining,
CAROLINE M. SAWYER.
223
And my faint heart hath need of thy sustaining —
Father, thy child is weak !
Yet, take thine own ! their souls are innocent —
Their little lives were beautiful and blameless :
I bring them back to thee, pure, white, and stainless,
E'en as when they were lent.
Keep them, and make them each a shining gem
Mid the bright things which fill the bovvers of heaven,
Till my soul, too, shall soar, earth's fetters riven,
Home — home, to thee and them !
LAKE MAHOPAC
LAKE of the soft and sunny hills,
What loveliness is thine !
Around thy fair, romantic shore,
What countless beauties shine !
Shrined in their deep and hollow urn,
Thy silver waters lie —
A mirror set in waving gems
Of many a regal dye.
Like angel faces in a dream,
Bright isles upon thy breast,
Veiled in soft robes of hazy light,
In such sweet silence rest —
The rustle of a bird's light wing,
The shiver of the trees,
The chime of waves — are all the sounds
That freight the summer breeze.
Oh. beautiful it is along
Thy silver wave to glide,
And watch the ripples as they kiss
Our tiny vessel's side ;
While ever round the dipping oar
White curls the feathery spray,
Or, from its bright suspended point,
Drips tinklingly away.
And pleasant to the heart it is
In those fair isles to stray,
Or Fancy's idle visions weave
Through all the golden day,
Where dark old trees, around whose stems
Caressing woodbines cling,
O'er mossy, flower-enamel'ed banks,
Their trembling shadows fling.
Oh, he who in his daily paths
A weary spirit bears,
Here in these peaceful solitudes
May he lay down his cares :
No echo from the restless world
Shall his repose invade,
Where the spectres of the haunted heart
By Nature's self are laid.
I stood upon thy shore, fair lake !
Long parted was the day,
And shadows of the eventide
Upon the waters lay ;
But from the sky the silver moon,
All radiant and serene,
Attended by eve's dewy star,
Smiled sweetly o'er the scene.
The earth was mute — no sound, save mine
Own beating heart, I heard,
When suddenly the listening air
With melody was stirred :
The low, faint chime of lapsing waves,
The voice of whispering boughs,
Waked by the night-winds gentle touch,
In mingled sweetness rose.
Oh, dear and hallowed was that hour :
O'er being's troubled tide
Still waters of eternal peace
Seemed solemnly to glide,
Whose anthems, deep, subdued, and low,
Through all my throbbing soul,
Like breathings from a brighter world,
In pleading murmurs stole.
Oh, dear and hallowed was the hour !
Along life's mazy track,
An angel from the paths of ill
Hath ofttimes lured me back ;
It watched above me at my birth,
It led me when a child,
And here, beside the moonlit waves,
Once more upon me smiled.
Lake of the hills ! around me yet
I feel thy magic spell —
Still, still by Fancy led, I pace
Thy dreamy island dell ;
The sere leaves, rustling to my tread,
Are heaped upon the ground,
And the graves of long, long centuries
Lie thickly clustering round.
T was hither, old traditions tell,
The Indian of yore
Forth from the peopled haunts of life
His dead in silence bore,
And, trenching reverently the sod,
Within earth's loving breast,
With his bow and arrows by his side,
Here laid him down to rest.
Fit place of sepulture ! tall trees
In columned arches rise,
Through whose thick-woven boughs steal down
Soft glimpses of the skies.
Amid their leaves, like spirit strains,
^Eolian sounds awake,
And o'er the long-forgotten dead
A solemn requiem make.
Ah, peace ! while on this rocky seat
Myself once more I cast,
And people all the island shades
With phantoms of the past,
Till from the grand old beetling rocks,
That far above me frown,
A thousand dusky faces gaze
In ;nournful silence down.
They gaze — while in their troubled hearts
Wild memories seem to lie,
And fearful meanings darkly flit
O'er many a burning eye ;
Pale warriors lift their folded hands
In mute, appealing prayer,
Then clasp them o'er their snent breasts
In deep and stil' despair !
CAROLINE M. SAWYER.
B |f, see — those sternly-lifted brows!
Quick change comes o'er my dream:
Each phantom form is flashing now
With strange and sudden gleam;
Swift feathery arrows cleave the air,
From coppice, trees, and rocks,
And the wild glen hisses to the paths
Of hurtling tomahawks !
I start - I clutch the air — and lo !
My fearful dream is o'er ;
Kind human voices call me back
To the bright world once more —
Kind, faithful hands, that grasp mine own,
Conduct me from the dell :
One last, one lingering gaze on thee —
Thou p'ace of graves, farewell !
Lake of the hills ! my song has ceased ;
But should my feet no more
Thread thy fair island glades, or pace
Thy richly varving shore,
A memory lives within my breast,
That, wheresoe'er I be,
As the heavens are mirrored by thy wave,
Will ever mirror thee !
THE WARRIOR'S DIRGE.
WARRIOR, rest : thy toils are ended —
Life's last fearful strife is o'er ;
Clarion calls, with death-notes blended,
Shall disturb thine ear no more.
Peaceful is thy dreamless slumber —
Peaceful — but how cold and stern !
Thou hast joined that silent number
In the land whence none return.
Warrior, rest : thy banner o'er thee
Hangs in many a drooping fold ;
Many a manly cheek before thee
Stained with tear-drops we behold.
Thine was not a hand to falter,
When thy sword shou'd leave its sheath ;
Thine was not a cheek to alter,
Though thy duty led to death.
Warrior, rest: a dirge is knelling
Solemnly from shore to shore ;
'Tis a nation's tribute, telling
That a patriot is no more.
Thou, where Freedom's sons have striven,
Firm and bold, didst foremost stand ;
Free'y was thy life-blood given
For thy home and fatherland.
Warrior, rest : our star is vanished
That to victory led the way,
And from one lone hearth is banished
All that cheered life's weary day ;
There thy young bride weeps in sorrow
Tnat no more she hears thy tread —
That the night which knows no morrow
Darkly veils thy laurelled head.
Warrior, rest : we smooth thy pillow
For thy last, long earthly sleep ;
Oh, beneath yon verdant willow
Storms unheard will o'er thee sweep.
There, 't is done ! — thy couch awaits thee —
Softly down thy head we lay;
Here repose, till God translates thee
From the dust to endless day !
REUNION.
NAY, pause not yet ! another strain —
A strain to bid the spirit start —
Glad songs for those who meet again,
And blend together heart with heart !
Give to the winds each anxious thought
Which o'er our bliss a shade might cast;
These hours, by weary absence bought,
Should be all sunshine to the last.
What though we part again to-morrow,
For years, perhaps, no more to meet ?
We will not of the future borrow
One pang to mar an hour so sweet.
Swell high the strain, then ! let our souls
W'ith mirth and gayety be filled,
And brightly, as each moment rolls,
Be drops of ecstasy distilled !
Hush, hark ! amid our rapture now,
What strange, low, sorrowing tone comesnear?
Why steals a shadow o'er each brow,
And through each mirthful smile a tear !
Alas ! the spirit can not brook
The voice of careless glee to-day,
But, from each thoughtless word and look,
Turns, sick and shuddering, away.
Oh, hush the song ! lest feeling's tide
Grow mightier than may be controlled :
Then calmly seated, side .by side,
Each other's hand we'll fondly hold.
Linger a little longer yet,
And breathe your sweet words o'er mine ear;
Oh, I can die — but ne'er forget
This hour, so beautiful and dear !
i PEBBLES.
GTTE me the pebble, little one, that I
To yon bright pool may hurtle it away :
Look! how't has changed the azure wave to gray,
And blotted out the image of the sky !
So, when our spirits calm and placid lie —
When all the passions of the bosom sleep,
And from its stirless and unruffled deep
Beams up a heaven as bright as that on high,
Some pebble — envy, jealousy, misdoubt —
Dashed in our bosom's slumbering waves to jar,
Will cloud the mirrored surface of the soul,
And blot its heaven of joy and beauty out.
Sin ! fling no pebble in my soul, to mar
Its solemn depths, and o'er it clouds to roll !
MARGARET L. BAILEY.
(Born 1812).
MRS. BAILEY is a daughter of the Rev.
Thomas Shands, and was born in Sussex
county, Virginia, on the twelfth of Decem
ber, 1812. When she was about six years
of age, her father removed to theAVest ; and
in 1833 she Avas married to Mr. G. Bailey,
junior, subsequently editor of the Cincinnati
Philanthropist, then of the Cincinnati Morn
ing Herald, and now of the National Era, at
Washington. In March, 1844, Mrs. Bailey
became editress of The Youth's Monthly
Visiter, at Cincinnati, and conducted it, with
a circulation which arose to some three thou-
! sand copies, until her removal to the District
of Columbia, near the close of 1840. This
| periodical was perhaps the first of its class
ever published in the country, and its con
tents justify the critical opinion of Mr. Wil
liam D. Gallagher, that Mrs. Bailey is one
of the ablest women of the age.
The poems of Mrs. Bailey have appeared
in the journals edited by herself and her
husband, and there has been no collected edi
tion of them. They have less individuality
than her prose, but they are informed with
i fancy and a just understanding.
LIFE'S CHANGES.
A LITTLE child on a sunny day,
Sat on a flowery bank at play ;
The gentle breath of the summer air
Waved the curls of her golden hair,
And ever her voice rang merrily out
In a careless laugh or a joyous shout.
Beautiful was she as early morn,
When the dew is fresh on the blossoming thorn;
And methought as I looked on her fair young face,
Beaming with beauty and truth and grace,
How cold and heartless the world must be,
That could su!ly such spotless purity !
Years ro led by : in her maiden pride
She stood, a gentle and trusting bride —
How beautiful still ! though a softening shade
O'er the dazzling hue of that beauty played,
Whi'e the tender glance of her soft blue eye
Told of a love that could not die :
And I prayed as T gazed on her placid brow,
Pure as a wreath of new-fallen snow,
That sorrow, the sorrow that comes to all,
Light'y and gently on her might fall.
Again I saw her: Time had been there,
Tipping with silver her golden hair;
He had breathed on her cheek, and its rosy hue
Was gone, but her heart was pure and true,
As when first I met her a budding flower,
Or a gentle maid in her bridal hour.
As mother and wife she bad borne her part,
With the faith and hope of a loving heart ;
And now when nature, with years opprest,
Looks and longs for her quiet rest,
With holy trust in her Father's love,
Awaiting a summons from above,
She lingers with us, as if to show
To the faint and weary ones below,
How oft to the faithful soul ^t is given
To taste on earth of the joys of heaven.
15
THE PAUPER CHILD'S BURIAL.
STRETCHED on a rude plank the dead pauper lay:
No weeping friends gathered to bear him away ;
His white, slender fingers were clasped on his breast
The pauper child meekly lay taking his rest.
The hair on his forehead was carelessly parted ;
No one cared for him, the desolate hearted :
In life none had loved him — his pathway, all sear
Had not one sweet blossom its sadness to cheer.
No fond, gentle mother had ever caressed him,
In tones of affection and tenderness blessed him ;
For ere his eye greeted the light of the day,
His mother had passed in her anguish away.
Poor litt'e one ! often thy meek eyes have sought
The smile of affection, of kindness unbought,
And wistfully gazing, in wondering surprise,
That no one beheld thee with pitying eyes.
And when in strange gladness thy young voice was
heard,
As in winter's stern sadness the song of a bird,
Harsh voices rebuked thee, and, cowering in fear,
Thy glad song was hushed in a sob and a tear.
And when the last pang rent thy heartstrings in
twain,
And burst from thy bosom the last sign of pain,
No gentle one soothed thee, in love's melting tone,
With fond arm around thee in tenderness thrown.
Stern voices and cold mingled strange in thine ear
With the songs of the angels the dying may hear;
And thrillingly tender, amid Death's alarms,
Was thy mother's voice welcoming thee to her arms.
Thy fragile form, wrapped in its coarse snioud
reposes .
In slumbers as sweet as if pillowed on roses
And while on thy coffin the rude clods are pressed,
The good Shepherd folds the shorn lamb to his r>roa«t
225
MARGARET L. BAILEY.
MEMORIES.
On, pleasant are the memories
Of childhood's forest home,
And oft, amid the toil* of lifn,
Like bless(:d dreams they come :
Of sunset hours when I lay entranced,
Mid shadows cool and green,
Watching the winged insects glance,
In summer's golden sheen :
Theii drowsy hum was a lullaby
To Nature's quiet sleeping,
While o'er the meadow's dewy breast
The evening winds were creeping :
The ploughman's whistle heard afar,
To his humb'e home returning ;
And faintly in the gathering shade
The firefly's lamp was burning.
Up in the old oak's pleasant shade,
Where mossy branches swing,
With gentle twitterings, soft and low,
Nestling with fluttering wing —
Were summer birds — their tender notes
Like love's own fond caressing,
When a mother folds her little flock,
With a whispered prayer and blessing.
The cricket chirps from the hollow tree,
To the music of the rill,
And plaintively echoes through the wood
The song of the whip-poor-will.
Tinged with the last faint light of day,
A white cloud in the west
Floats in the azure sea above,
Like a ship on ocean's breast.
The evening star as a beacon shines
On the far horizon's verge,
And the wind moans through the distanl pines,
Like Ihe troubled ocean's surge.
From lowly va'es the rising mist
Curls up the hillside green,
And its summit, 'twixt the earth and sky,
Like a fairy isle is seen.
Away in the depths of ether shine
The stars serenely bright —
Gems in the glorious diadem,
Circling the brow of night.
Our Father ! if thy meaner works
Thus beautiful appear,
If such revealings of thy love
Enkindle rapture here —
If to our mortal sense thou dost
Thy treasures thus unfold,
When death shall rend this earthly veil,
How shall our eyes behold
Thy glory — when the spirit soars
Beyond the. starry zone
And in thy presence folds her wing,
And bows before thy throne '
ENDURANCE.
WTHE:V, upon wings of rainbow hues,
Hope flits across thy pathway here,
And gently as the morning breeze
Her waving pinion dries thy tear,
Oh, yield not all thy soul to joy,
Let not her blandishments allure :
Life's greenest spot hath withered flowers —
Whate'er thy lot, thou must endure.
If, on the mountain's topmost cliff,
The flag of victory seems unfurled,
And Faith, exulting, sees afar
Earth's idol, Error, downward hurled,
Deem not the triumph thou shall share —
God keeps his chosen vessels pure ;
The final reckoning is on high,
On earth thy meed is to endure.
W7ith chastened heart, in humble faith,
Thy labor earnestly pursue,
As one who fears to such frail deeds
No recompense is due :
Wax not faint-hearted — while thou toil'st,
Thy bread and water shall be sure ;
Leaving all else to God, be thou
Patient in all things to endure.
DUTY AND REWARD.
EVERY day hath toil and trouble,
Every heart hath care :
Meekly bear thine own full measure,
And thy brother's share.
Fear not, shrink not, though the burden
Heavy to thee prove ;
God shall fill thy mouth with gladness,
And thy heart with love.
Patiently enduring, ever
Let thy spirit be
Bound by links, that can not sever,
To humanity.
Labor — wait ! thy Master perished
Ere his task was done ;
Count not lost thy fleeting moments,
Life hath but begun.
Labor ! and the seed thou sowest
Water with thy tears ;
God is faithful — he will give thee
Answer to thy prayers.
Wait in hope ! though yet no verdure
Glad thy longing eyes,
Thou shall see the ripened harvest
Garnered in the skies.
Labor — wait ! though midnight shadows
Gather round thee here,
And the storms above Ihee lowering
Fill Ihy hearl wilh fear —
Wait in hope : the morning dawneth
When the night is gone,
And a peaceful rest awaits thee
W hcu thy \\ ork is done.
LAURA M. THURSTON.
(Born 1812-Died 1842).
LAURA M. HAWLEY, afterward Mrs. THURS
TON, was born in Norfolk, Connecticut, in De
cember, 1812. She completed her education
in the Hartford Female Seminary, and sub
sequently was a teacher in Hartford and New
Milford, Connecticut, in Philadelphia, and in
New Albany, Indiana. In the latter place
she was married, in September, 1839, to Mr.
Franklin Thurston, a merchant ; and surren
dering- the school of which she had been the
principal, to other hands, she resided there
until her death, which occurred on the twen
ty-first of July, 1842. Under the signature
of " Viola'; Mrs. Thurston had made herself
known by many productions marked by feel
ing and a melodious versification, which were
fjr the most part originally published in the
Louisville Journal.
THE GREEN HILLS OF MY FATHERLAND.
THE green hills of my fatherland
In dreams sti'.l greet my view :
I see once more the wave-girt strand,
The ocean depth of blue ;
The sky, the glorious sky, outspread
Above their calm repose ;
The river, o'er its rocky bed
Still singing as it flows ;
The stillness of the sabbath hours,
When men go up to pray ;
The sunlight resting on the flowers,
The birds that sing among the bowers
Through all the summer day.
Land of my birth — mine early love —
Once more thine airs I breathe :
I see thy proud hills tower above,
Thy green vales sleep beneath ;
Thy groves, thy rocks, thy murmuring rills,
All rise before mine eyes ;
The dawn of morning on thy hills,
Thy gorgeous sunset skies;
Thy forests, from whose deep recess
A thousand streams have birth,
Gladdening the lonely wi'derness,
Ami filling the green silentness
With melody and mirth.
(. wonder if my home would seem
As lovely as of yore ;
I wonder if the mountain stream
Goes singing by the door ;
And if the flowers still bloom as fair,
And if the woodbines climb,
As when I used to train them there,
In the dear olden time ;
I wonder if the birds still sing
Upon the garden tree,
As sweetly as in that sweet spring
Whose golden memories gently bring
So many dreams to me.
I know that there hath been a change,
A change o'er hall and hearth —
Faces and footsteps new and strange
About my place of birth :
The heavens above are still as bright
As in the days gone by,
But vanished is the beacon light
That cheered my morning sky ;
And hill, and vale, and woodland glen,
And rock, and murmuring stream,
That wore such glorious beauty then,
Wou'd seem, should I return again.
The record of a dream.
I mourn not for my childhood's hours,
Since, in the far-off west,
'Neath sunnier skies, in greener bowers,
My heart hath found its rest.
I mourn not for the hills and streams
That chained my steps so long,
Yet still I see thee in my dreams,
And hail them in my song;
And often by the hearth-fire's blaze,
When winter eves shall come,
W'e'll sit and talk of other days,
And sing the well-remembered lays
Of my green mountain home.
CROSSING THE ALLEGANIES.
THE broad, the bright, the glorious Wesl,
Is spread before me now !
Where the gray mists of morning rest
Beneath yon mountain's brow!
The bound is past, the goal is won ,
The region of the setting sun
Is open to my view :
Land of the valiant and the free —
Mv own Green Mountain land — to the*
And thine a long adieu !
227
228
MARTHA DAY.
I hail thce, Valley of the West,
For what thou yet shall be ;
I hail thee for the hopes that rest
Upon thy destiny !
Here, from this mountain height, I see
Thv bright waves floating to the sea,
Thine emerald fields outspread ;
And feel that, in the book of fame,
Proudly shall thy recorded name
In later days be read.
Yet, while I gaze upon thee now,
All glorious as thou art,
A cloud is resting on my brow,
A weight upon my heart.
To me, in all thy youthful pride,
Thou art a land of cares untried
Of untold hopes and fears ;
Thou art — yet not for thee I grieve ;
But, for the far-off land I leave,
I look on thee with tears.
Oh ! brightly, brightly glow thy skies
In Summer's sunny hours!
The green earth seems a paradise
Arrayed in summer flowers !
But oh ! there is a land afar,
Whose skies to me are brighter far,
Along the Atlantic shore !
For eyes beneath their radiant shrine
In kindlier glances answered mine:
Can these their light restore ]
Upon the lofty bound I stand
That parts the East and West;
Before me lies a fairy land —
Behind, a home of rest !
Here, Hope her wild enchantment flings,
Portrays all bright and lovely things
My footsteps to allure ;
But there, in Memory's light, I see
All that was once most dear to me —
My young heart's cynosure !
MARTHA DAY.
(Born 1813
Miss DAY was a daughter of the late emi
nent president of Yale College, and was born
in New Haven on the thirteenth of Febru
ary, 1813. She was educated at the best
schools in Connecticut, and was particularly
distinguished for her acquirements in math
ematics and languages. She died suddenly,
when but twenty years of age, on the second
of December, 1833, and in the following year
-Died 1833).
a collection of her Literary Remains, with
Memorials of her Life and Character, was
published at New Haven by her friend and
relative. Prof. Kingsley. Her poems were
buds of promise, which justified the anticipa
tions that were entertained of her eminence
in literature. The following hymn was de
signed to be inserted in an unwritten drama,
suggested by an incident in the life of David.
HYMN.
FATHER Almighty!
From thy high seat thou watchest and controllest
The insects that upon thy footstool creep,
While, with a never-wearied hand, thou rollest
Millions of worlds along the boundless deep.
O Father ! now the clouds hang blackening o?er us,
And the dark, boiling deeps beneath as yawn :
Scatter the tempests, quell the waves before us ;
To the wild, fearful night send thou a bless -d dawn.
Father All Holy !
When thou shalt sit upon thy throne of glory,
Thi; steadfast earth, the strong, untiring sea,
Their verdant isles, their mountains high and hoary,
With awe and fear shall from thy presence flee.
Then shalt thou sit a Judge, the guilty dooming
To adamantine chains and endless lire:
Oh, Father ! how may we abide thy coming 1
Where find a shelter from the pure Jehovah's ire 1
Father All Merciful !
Still 7iiay the guilty come in peace before thee,
Bathing thy feet with tears of love and wo;
And while for pardon only we implore thee,
Blessings divine unnumbered, o'er us flow.
Father, her heart from all her idols tearing,
Thine erring child again would turn to thee ;
To thee she bends, trembling, yet not despairing :
From fear, remorse, and sin, 0 Father ! set her free.
LINES ON PSALM CII.
THK boundless universe,
All that it hath of splendor and of life,
The living, moving worlds, in their bright robes
Of blooming lands and heaving, glittering watery
Even the still and holy depths of heaven,
Where the glad planets bathe in floods of light,
For ever pouring from a thousand suns,
All, all are but the garments of our Gon,
Yea, the dark foldings of his outmost skirts !
Mortal ! who with a trembling, longing heart,
Watchest in silence the few rays that steal,
In their kind dimness, to thy feeble sight —
Watch on, in silence, till within thy soul,
Bearing away each taint of sin and death,
Springs the hid fountain of immortal life !
Then shall the mighty veil asunder rend,
And o'er the spirit — living, strong, and pure —
Shall the full glories of the Godhead flow !
MARY ANN HANMER DODD,
(Born 1813).
Miss DOFD is a daughter of Mr. Elisha
Dodd, of Hartford, Connecticut, and was born
in ISIS. Her first appearance as an author
was in 1834 when she contributed a few
poems to The Hermenethean, a miscellany
conducted by the students of Washington
(now Trinity) College. She has since writ
ten frequently for the Ladies' Repository, a
monthly magazine, and The Rose of Sharon,
an annual, edited for several years by her
friend the late Mrs. Mayo. A collection of
her poems was published at Hartford in 1843,
Miss Dodd writes with taste and feeling, and
her writings would have been known more
generally and perhaps more favorably if she
had not confined herself so much to denomi
national channels of publication. Like Mrs.
Scott, Mrs. Mayo, Mrs. Sawyer, Mrs. Case,
the Careys, and some others who are quoted
in this volume, she is of the Universalist
church, though her religious compositions are
all addressed to universal sympathies.
LAMENT.
SCMMKR departs! the golden hours are dying!
In the green glade its minstrelsy is still ;
A purple haze, like a thin veil, is lying
On the calm waters and the distant hill.
Cooler the breeze that waits upon the morning;
Paled is the sp'endor of the noontide ray ;
Fewer the flowers the forest path adorning;
Earlier the Iwi ight fades in gloom away.
Summer departs, and thou, too, hast departed !
Thou, who wert joy and sunshine to thy friends ;
What have thev now, the lonely and sad-hearted,
But the low mound which o'er thy slumber bends]
The Power that pales the season as its closes,
And folds the brightness in the blossom's breast,
Bade Death go forth among the fading roses,
And bear thy spirit to its promised rest.
Summer, sweet Summer! saddened in thy waning,
A shadow falleth on thy garlands gay ;
A deeper gloom is on thy path remaining,
Since one beloved hath with thee passed away !
Thou wilt come back; but when thy skies are burn-
And thy fair presence gladdens all the plain, [ing,
How can we ever joy in thy returning 1
How can we welcome thee with smiles again 1
Thou wi!t not wake the dead, in silence sleeping,
Who vanished from us with thy long, bright days ;
Thou wilt not call the form the grave is keeping,
Once more to meet and bless our lingering gaze.
So is it best — thou friend, returning never!
Thou, the true-hearted, generous, and kind !
For thee 'tis best: when kindred spirits sever,
They only suffer who remain behind.
Thou art secure from ill. Life's toil is ended;
Finished, for thee, its feverishness and strife ;
Its discords in one harmony are blended ;
Its seeming gloom is all with brightnes- rife.
Oh ! in that glorious land the good inherit,
Canst thou the anguish of a mourner see,
Who finds the only spell that soothes her spirit
In weaving thus a sad lament for thee !
THE MOURNER.
THOU weepesv for a sister ! In the bloom
And spring-time of her years to Death a prey,
Shrouded from love by the remorseless tomb,
Taken from all life's joys and griefs away.
'Tis hard to part with one so sudden called,
So young, so happy, and so dearly loved ;
To see the arrow at our idol hurled,
And vainly pray the shaft may be removed.
Young, loving, and beloved ! O cruel Death !
Couldst thou not spare the treasure for a while 1
There are warm hearts that wait to yield their breath,
And aged eyes that can no longer smile.
WThy pass the weary pilgrims on their way
Bowed down with toil, and sighing for relief;
To make the blossom in its pride thy prey,
Whose joyous heart had never tasted grief]
Sad sister, turn not hopelessly away ;
Nor longer at the will of Heaven repine ;
Fold not thy hands in agony and say,
" There is no sorrow in the world like mine."
Oh ! could my numbers soothe the sinking soul,
Or one hope waken with the wreath I twine,
Soft sounds of sympathy should round thee roll
Warm from a heart that knows such pain as thine.
I, too, have been a mourner. Sorrow deep
Its lava-tide around my pathway rolled ;
And sable weeds a hue could never keep,
Sad as the heart they hid beneath their fold.
All joy grew dim before my tearful eye,
Which but the shadow of t.he grave could see;
There was no brightness in the earth or sky,
There was no sunshine in the world for me.
Oh ! bitter was the draught from Sorrow's cup,
And stern the anguish which rny spirit wrung,
When I was called to give mine idol up,
And bend a mourner o'er the loved and young
And for the lost to weep is still my choice :
I ask for one whose pilgrimage is o'er,
And vainly listen for a vanished voice,
Whose p'.easant tones shall greet my ear n-> rr.ory
229
230
MARY A. H. DODD.
There is a spell around my spirit cast,
A shadow where the sanbeam smiled before;
'Tis grief, but all its bitterness is past;
'Tis sorrow, but its nmrmurings are o'er.
Within my soul, which to the storm was bowed,
Now the white wing of Peace is folded deep;
And I have found, I trust, behind the cloud,
The blessing promised to the eyes that weep.
So thou wilt fmd relief. For deepest wo
A fount of healing in our pathway springs ;
Like Lethe's stream, that silver fountain's flow
A soothing draught unto the sufferer brings.
A Father chastened thee ! oh, look to Him,
And his dear love in all thy trials see ;
Look with the eye of faith through shadows dim,
And he will send the Comforter to thee.
TO A CRICKET.
CEASE, cricket! cease thy melancholy song!
Its chiming cadence falls upon mine ear
With such a saddening influence all day long,
I can not bear those mournful notes to hear;
Notes that will often start the unbidden tear,
And wake the heart to memories of old days,
When life knew not a sorrow or a fear :
For ever basking in the sunny rays
Which seem so passing bright to youth's all-trustful
gaze.
Once more my steps are stayed at eventide,
Beneath the fairest moon that ever shone ;
Where the old oak threw out its branches wide
Over the low roof of mine early home ;
Ere yet my bosom knew a wish to roam
From the broad shelter of that ancient tree,
Or dreamed of other lands beside our own,
Beyond the boundary of that flowery lea ;
For the green valley there was world enough for me.
A group are gathered round the household hearth,
Where chilly Autumn bids the bright flame play ;
And social converse sweet, and childhood's mirth,
Swiftly beguile the lengthened eve away :
A laughing girl shakes back her tresses gay,
With a half-doubtful look and wondering tone —
Hark ! there is music ! do you hear the lay 1
Mother, what is it singing in the stone 1
some luckless fairy wight imprison' d there alone?"...
Wake not remembrance thus ! for stern the fate
That marks my pathway with a weary doom ;
And to a heart so worn and desolate,
Thy boding voice may add a deeper gloom.
Though few the clouds which o'er the blue sky
A nd green the livery of our forest bowers, [roam,
To warn us of a sure decay ye come,
In sable guise, trailing the faded flowers,
Singing the death-song sad of Summer's waning
hours !
Those emerald robes will change to russet brown,
Which Summer over vale and hillside cast;
To other skies, that know no wintry frown,
Bright birds shall wing their weary way at last;
And Autumn's hectic hues which fade so fast
Will make the dark old woods awhile look gay;
But Death must come when the rare show is past:
Then cease thy chant, dark prophet of decay !
I can not bear to hear thy melancholy lay !
THE DREAMER.
"A dark, cold calm, whidi nothing now ran break,
Or warm, or brighten; like that Syrian Like.
• surface Morn ami Summer shed
in vain, for all beneath is dead!"
Upon wl
Their
HKAKT of mine, why art thou dreaming!
Dreaming through the weary day,
While life's precious hours are wasting,
Fast and unimproved away 1
With a world of beauty round me,
Lone and sad I dwell apart;
Changing scenes can bring no pleasure
To this wrecked and worn-out heart
Now I tempt the quiet Ocean
W7hile the sky is bright above,
And the sunlight rests around me,
Like the beaming smile of Love.
Or by streamlet softly flowing
Through the vale I wander now7 ;
And the balmy breath of Summer
Fans my cheek and cools my brow.
But as well, to me, might darken
Over all the gloom of night ;
For no quick and sweet sensations
Fill my soul with new delight.
In the grass-grown, silent churchyard,
With a listless step I rove ;
And I shed no tear of sorrow
By the graves of those I love.
Could I weep, the spell might vanish
Tears would bring my heart relief —
Heart so sealed to all emotion,
Dead alike to joy and grief.
When the storm that shook my spirit
Left its mission finished there,
Then a calm more fearful followed
Than the wildness of despair.
Whence the spell that chills my being
Bidding every passion cease,
Closing every fount of feeling ? —
Say, my spjrit, is it peace 1
Wake, oh spell-bound Soul ! awaken —
Bid this sad delusion flee:
Such a lengthened dream is fearful :
Such a peace is not for thee.
Life is thine, and " life is earnest,"
Toil and grief thou canst not shun ;
But be hopeful and believing,
Till the prize of faith is won.
Then the peace thou shalt inherit
By the Savior promised free ;
Peace the world destroyeth never —
Father, give that peace to me !
MARY A. H. DODD.
231
THE DOVE'S VISIT.
WHY dr> thy pinions their motion cease ?
Wouklst thou listen to my sighing?
Art thou come with the olive-branch of ^eace '.'
Thou dove to my window flying !
Thy breast is white as a snowv wreath
And thine eye is softly beaming;
Dost thou bear a message thy win? beneath,
For maid of her lover dreaming?
Has thy flight been far ? thy plumage gleams,
Unsoi ed and unworn with using :
Thou art mute, fair dove, but thy soft eye seems
To answer my id'e musing.
Oh, thou, thou hast been where I fain would be,
Where my th oughts are ever straying,
Where the balmiest breeze of spring blows free,
With the early blossoms playing !
Thou hast rested on the casement white,
Which the lilac-boughs are shading,
Where I greeted the morning's rosy light,
Or looked on the sunset fading.
Tell me, thou bird with the snowy breast!
Of a spot beloved for ever,
Of the pleasant walks which my steps have pressed,
Where now they may linger never.
With thee would I gladly hasten there,
If wings to my wish were granted, [care,
To tlie flowers that bloomed 'neath my mother's
And the trees my father planted.
For dearer the simplest blossom there,
Its sweets to the morning throwing,
Than the choicest flower that perfumes the air,
In a kingly garden growing.
Vainly I strive to restrain the tear,
The grief like a spring-tide swelling,
When my thoughts return to the home so dear
That is now a stranger's dwelling.
And while I turn me away to weep,
A host of memories waken,
Like the circle spreading upon the deep,
Or dropped from the foliage shaken
Shou'd fate, where affection clings so strong,
A heart from its Eden banish 7
Should it surfer a scene to charm so long,
And then like a vision vanish 1
I read reproach in that glance of thine,
For words of repining spoken ;
When my brow with the olive thou wouldst twine,
I reject the peaceful token.
Oh, how can a heart be still so weak,
Though ever for strength beseeching,
That from each event woald some lesson seek,
And scorn not the humblest teaching !
Waiting, and trustful like thee, sweet dove,
To the watchful care of Heaven —
With unshaken faith in a Father's love —
Be the future wholly given.
I will bid my heart's vain yearnings cease ;
I will hush this useless sighing ;
Thy visit hath brought to my spirit peace,
Thou dove to my win-low flying !
TWILIGHT.
THE sunset hues are fading fast
From the fair western sky away,
And floating clouds which gathered round
Have vanished with their colors gay.
All, save one streak that lingers there,
Retaining still a rosy hue,
Bright at the verge, but pale above,
Soft blending with celestial blue.
So lovely were those brilliant clouds
Which floated in the evening air,
It well might seem that angel-forms
Such fabrics for their robes would wear.
But, like the dreams that Fancy weaves,
Their beauty quickly passed away ;
And where their gorgeous tints were seen,
Soft twilight reigns with shadows gray.
One star, one bright and quiet star,
Kindles its steady light above,
Over the hushed and resting earth
Still watching like the eye of Love.
The birds that woke such joyous strains,
With folded pinions seek repose;
All, save the minstrel sad who sings
His plaintive love-lay to the rose.
The weary bees have reached the hive.
Rejoicing over labor done ;
And blossoms close their fragrant cups,
Which opened to the morning sun.
The winds are hushed that music made
The leafy-laden boughs between,
And scarce the lightest zephyr's breath
IVow dallies with the foliage green.
This is the hour so loved by all
Whose thoughts are lingering with the past,
When scenes and forms to memory dear
Gather around us dim and fast.
Childhood's bright days, youth's short romance,
And manhood's dreams of power and fame,
Again come back to cheat the heart
So changed by time, yet still the same.
The mingling tones of voices gone
Are breathing round us sweet and low,
And eyes are beaming once again,
That smiled upon us long ago.
We gaze upon those loving eyes,
Which never coldly turn away ;
We clasp the hand and press the lip
Of forms that but in memory stay.
We feel the influence of a spell,
And wake to smiles or melt to tears,
As pass before the dreaming eye
The light and shade of other years.
Oh, pleasant is the dewy morn !
And golden noon is fair to see
But sweeter far the closing day,
Dearer the twilight hour to me.
ANNE C. BOTTA.
MRS. ANNE CHARLOTTE BOTTA is a native
of Bennington, in Vermont. Her mother is
descended from the Fays and Robinsons,
conspicuous in the early history of that state,
and is a daughter of Colonel Gray, of the
Connecticut line in the Revolutionary army.
Her lather was one of the United Irishmen,
and in that celebrated body there were few
more heroic and constant. He was but six
teen when he joined in the rebellion of '98,
ar»d soon after his arrest, on account of his
youth and chivalrous character, he was of
fered liberty and a commission in the British
army if he would take the oath of allegiance
to the government. He refused, and -after
being four years a state prisoner, was, at the
age of twenty, banished for life. With Em
met, McNeven, and others, he came to Amer
ica, where he married ; and while his daugh
ter was a child, he died ii>Cuba, whither he
had gone in search qf health.
Mrs. Botta was educated at a popular
female seminary in Albany, where her class
compositions attracted much attention by a
strength and earnestness unusual in perform
ances of this description. She was a loving
reader of Childe Harold, and caught the tone
of this immortal poem, which is echoed in
several of her earlier pieces, that still have
sufficient individuality to justify the expec
tations then formed of her rnaturer abilities.
She soon outgrew imitation, and her occa
sional contributions to literary journals be
came more and more the voices of her own
life and nature.
After leaving school, Mrs. Botta passed
some time in Providence ; and her knowl
edge and tast« in literature are illustrated in
a volume which she published in that city,
in 1841, under the title of The Rhode-Island
Book — a selection of prose ard verse from
the writers of that state, including several
fine poems of her own. For five or six years
she has resided in New York, where her
house is known for the wo kly assemblies
there of persons ?onnected vith literature
and the arts. 1 have sometimes attended
these agreeable parties, and have met at
them probably the larger number of the liv
ing poets whose works are reviewed in this
volume, with many distinguished men of
letters, painters, sculptors, singers, and am
ateurs, among whom our author is held in as
much esteem for her amiable social quali
ties, as respect for her intellectual accom
plishments.
The poems of Mrs. Botta are marked by
depth of feeling and grace of expression.
They are the natural and generally unpre
meditated effusions of a nature extremely
sensitive, but made strong by experience and
knowledge, and elevated into a divine repose
by the ever active sense of beauty. Though
for the most part very complete, they are
short, and in many cases may be regarded as
improvisations upon the occasions by which
they were suggested. We have nothing in
them that may be regarded as a fair illustra
tion of her powers.
The prose writings of Mrs. Botta are
graceful, elegant, and full of fine reflection.
They evince a genial and hopeful but not
joyous spirit — a waiting for the fulure rather
than a satisfaction with the present. She
has a large acquaintance with literature, and
her criticisms, scattered through many des
ultory compositions, are discriminating, and
illustrated, from a wide observation and a
ready fancy, with uniform judgment and taste.
The long chapter entitled Leaves from the
Diary of a Reel use, in The Gift for MDCCCXLV,
is characteristic of her manner, while for a
brief period it admits us to the contemplation
of her life.
A collection of the Poems of Mrs. Botta,
with engravings after original designs by her
friends Durand,Huntington,Cheney,Darley,
Brown, Cushman, Rossiter, Rothermel, and
Winner, appeared in 1848. It is a beautiful
book of art, and so demonstrative of her po
etical abilities that it will secure her a posi
tion she has not before occupied as an author
ANNE C. BOTTA.
233
THE IDEAL.
" La vie est un sommeil 1'amour en eet la reve."
A SAD, sweet dream ! It fell upon my soul
When song and thought first woke their echoes
Swaying my spirit to its wild control, [there,
And with the shadow of a fond despair,
Darkening the fountain of my young life's stream.
It haunts me still, and yet I know 'tis but a dream.
Whence art thou, shadowy presence, that canst hide
From my charmed sight the glorious things oi
A mirage o'er life's desert dost thou glide 1 [earth .'
Or with those g'immerings of a former birth,
A " trailing cloud of glory," hast thou come [home 7
From some bright world afar, our unremembered
I know thou dwell'st not in this dull, cold Real,
1 know thy home is in some brighter sphere ;
I know I shall not meet thee, my Ideal,
In the dark wanderings that await me here :
Why comes thy gentle image then, to me,
Wasting my night of life in one long dream of thee ]
The city's peopled solitude, the glare
Of festal halls, moonlight, and music's tone,
All breathe the sad refrain — thou are not there !
And even with Nature I am still alone :
With joy I see her summer bloom depart ;
I love drear winter's reign — 't is winter in my heart.
And if I sigh upon my brow to see
The deep'ning shadow of Time's restless wing,
'T is for the youth I might not give to thee,
The vanished brightness of my first sweet spring;
That I might give thee not the joyous form
Unworn by tears and cares, unblighted by the storm.
And when the hearts I should be proud to win,
Breathe, in those tones that woman holds so dear,
Words of impassioned homage unto mine,
Coldly and harsh they fall upon my ear ;
And as I listen to the fervent vow,
My weary heart replies, « Alas ! it is not thou."
And when the thoughts within my spirit glow,
That would outpour themselves in words of fire,
If some kind influence bade the music flow,
Like that which woke the notes of Memnon's lyre,
Thou, sunlight of my life, wak'st not the lay,
And song within my heart, unuttered, dies away.
Depart, oh shadow ! fatal dream, depart !
Go! I conjure thee leave me this poor life,
And I will meet with firm, heroic heart,
Its threat'ning storms and its tumultuous strife,
And with the poet-seer will see thee stand
To welcome my approach to thine own spirit-land.
THE IDEAL FOUND.
I'VE met thee, whom I dared not hope to meet,
Save in th' enchanted land of my day dreams :
Yes, in this common world, this waking state,
Thy living presence on my vision beams —
Life's dream embodied in reality !
And in thine eyes I read indifference to me !
Yes. in those star-like eyes I read my fate,
My horoscope is written in their gaze ;
My " house of life" henceforth is desolate :
But the dark aspect my firm heart surveys,
Nor faints nor falters even for thy sake : [break !
'T is calm and nerved and strong : no, no, it shall not
For I am of that mood that will defy —
That does not cower before the gathering storm ;
That face to face will meet its destiny,
And undismayed confront its darkest form.
Wild energies awaken in this strife,
This conflict of the soul with the grim phantom Life.
But ah ! if thou hadst loved me — had I been
All to thy dreams that to mine own thou art —
Had those dark eyes beamed eloquent on mine,
Pressed for one moment to that noble heart
In the full consciousness of faith unspoken,
Life could have given no more — then had my proud
heart broken !
The Alpine glacier from its height may mock
The clouds and lightnings of the winter skv,
And from the tempest and the thunder's shock
Gather new strength to lift its summit high ;
But kissed by sunbeams of the summer day,
It bows its icy crest and weeps itself away.
Thou know'st the fable of the Grecian maid
W^ooed by the veiled immortal from the skies,
How in his full perfections, once she prayed,
That he would stand before her longing eyes,
And how that brightness, too intense to bless, [cess.
Consumed her o'erwrought heart with its divine ex-
To me there is a meaning in the tale.
I have not prayed to meet thee : I can brook
That thou shouldst wear tr me that icy veil ;
I can give back thy cold ai.d careless look :
Yet shrined within my heart, still thou shalt seem
W7hat there thou ever wert, a beautiful, brightdream!
THE IMAGE BROKEN.
'TWAS but a dream, a fond and foolish Jream —
The calenture of a delirious brain,
Whose fever-thirst creates the rushing stream.
Now to the actual I awake again ;
The vision, to my gaze one moment granted,
Fades in its light away and leaves me disenchanted
The image that my glowing fancy wrought,
Now to the dust with ruthless hand I cast,
Thus I renounce the worship that I sought,
Of my own idol the iconoclast.
The echo of « Eureka ! I have found !"
Falls back upon my heart a vain and empty sound
Oh, disembodied being of my mind,
So wildly loved, so fervently adored !
In whom all high and glorious gifts I shrined,
And my heart's incense on the altar poured —
Now do I know that, clad in mortal guise,
Ne'er on this earth wilt thou upon my vision risn
That only in the vague, cold realm of Thought
Shall I meet thee whom here I seek in vain
And like Egyptian Isis, when she sought
The scattered fragments of Osiris slain.
234
AXXE C. BOTTA.
Now do I know that henceforth I shall find
But fragments of thy soul within earth's clay en
shrined.
Thou whom I have not seen and shall not see
Till the sad drama of this life he o'er!
Yet do I not renounce my faith in thee :
Thou still art mine — I thine for evermore ;
And this hi'lief shall lie the funeral pyre
Of a!l Kiss noble love, of all less high desire.
Here, like the Hindoo widow, I will bring
Hope, youth, and all that woman prizes most —
The glow of summer and the bloom of spring,
And on thine altar lay the holocaust:
And, in my faith exulting, I will see
The sacrifice consume I consecrate to thee.
To Love's sweet tones my heart shall never thrill ;
Nor, as the tardy years their circles roll,
Shall they the ardor of its pulses chill.
Thus will I live in widowhood of soul,
Until, at last, my lingering exile o'er,
Upon some lovelier star, too blest, we meet once more.
Oh. tell me not that now indeed I dream ;
That these aspirings mocked at last will be !
Gleams of a higher life to me they seem —
A sacred pledge of immortality.
Tell not the yearning heart it shall not find : [kind !
0 Love, thou art too strong ! O God, thou art too
THE BATTLE OF LIFE.
THETIS are countless fields the green earth o'er
Where the verdant turf has been dyed with gore ;
Where hostile ranks, in their grim array,
With the battle's smoke have obscured the day;
Where hate was stamped on each rigid face,
As foe met foe in the death embrace;
Whore the groans of the wounded and dying rose,
Till the heart of the listener with horror froze,
And the wide expanse of the crimsoned plain
Was piled with its heaps of uncounted slain:
But a fiercer combat, a deadlier strife,
Ts that which is waged in the battle of life.
The hero that wars on the tented field,
With his shining sword and his burnished shield,
Goes not alone with his faithful brand ;
Friends and comrades around him stand,
The trumpets sound and the war-steeds neigh
To join in the shock of the coming fray —
And he flies to the onset, he charges the foe,
Where the bayonets gleam and the red tides flow ;
And be bears his part in the conflict dire
With an arm all nerve and a heart all fire.
What though he fall ' at the battle's close,
In the flush of thr victory won he goes,
With martial music and waving plume,
From a field of fame to a laurelled tomb.
But the hero who wars in the battle of life,
Must st ind alone in the fearful strife ;
Alone in his weakness or strength must go.
Hero or craven, to meet the fo? :
He may not fly on that fated field —
ffe must win or lose, he must conquer or yield.
Warrior, who comest to this battle now
With a careless step and a thoughtless brow,
As if the field were already won —
Pause and gird all thine armor on ;
Myriads have come to this battle ground
With a valiant arm and a name renowned,
And have fallen vanquished to rise no more,
Ere the sun was set or the day half o'er.
Dost thou bring with thee hither a dauntless will,
An ardent soul that no blast can chill ?
Thy shield of Faith hast thou tried and proved —
Canst thou say to the mountain, " Be thou moved 1"
In thy hand does the sword of Truth flame bright?
Is thy banner emblazoned, " For God and the riu;ht ]"
In the mia;ht of prayer dost thou strive and plead 1
Never had warrior greater need !
Unseen foes in thy pathway hide ;
Thou art encompassed on every side.
There Pleasure waits with her siren train,
Her poison flowers and her hidden chain ;
Hope with hei Dead-sea fruits is there ;
Sin is spreading her gilded snare ;
Flattery counts with her hollow smiles,
Passion ^:th silvery tone beguiles ;
Love anJ Friendship their charmed spells weave :
Trust not too deeply — they may deceive !
Disease with her ruthless hand would smite,
And Care spread o'er thee a wiiucr::^ blight ;
Hate and Envy with visage black,
And the serpent Slander, are on thy track.
Guilt and Fa'sehood, Remorse and Pride,
Doubt and Despair, in thy pathway glide ;
Haggard Want in her demon joy
Waits to degrade thee and then destroy ;
Palsied Age in the distance lies,
And watches his victim with ray less eyes;
And Death the insatiate is hovering near,
To snatch from thy grasp all thou boldest dear.
No skill may avail and no ambush hide :
In the open field must the champion bide,
And face to face and hand to hand
Alone in his valor confront that band.
• In war with these phantoms that gird him round,
No limbs dissevered may strew the ground ;
No blood may flow, and no mortal ear
The groans of the wounded heart may hear,
As it struggles and writhes in their dread control,
As the iron enters the riven soul :
But the youthful form grows wasted and weak,
And sunken and wan is the rounded cheek ;
The brow is furrowed, but not with years ;
The eye is dimmed with its secret tears,
And streaked with white is the raven hair —
These are the tokens of conflict there.
The battle is over : the hero goes,
Scarred and worn, to his last repose ,-
He has won the day, he has conquered Doom,
He has sunk unknown to his nameless tomb ;
For the victor's glory no voices plead ;
Fame has no echo and earth no meed;
But the guardian angels are hovering near:
They have watched unseen o'er the conflict here,
And they bear him now on their wings away
To a realm of peace, to a cloudless day.
Ended now is the earthly strife,
And his brow is crowned with the crown of life!
AXNE C. BOTTA.
235
THOUGHTS IN A LIBRARY.
SPF.AK low — tread softly through these halls;
tlere Genius lives enshrined ;
Here reign, in silent majesty,
The monarchs of the mind.
A mighty spirit-host they come,
From every age and clime ;
Above the buried wrecks of years,
They breast ihe tide of Time.
And in their presence-chamber here
They hold their regal state,
And round them throng a noble train,
The gifted and the great.
Oh, child of Earth ! when round thy path
The storms of life arise,
And when thy brothers pass thee by
With stern, unloving eyes —
Here shall the poets chant for thee
Their sweetest, loftiest lays;
And prophets wait to guide thy steps
In wisdom's pleasant ways.
Come, with these God-anointed kings
Be thou companion here;
And in the mighty realm of mind
Thou shall go forth a peer !
HAGAR.
UXTRODDKX, drear, and lone,
Stretched many a league away,
Beneath a burning, noonday sun,
The Syrian desert lay.
The scorching rays that beat
Upon that herbless plain,
The dazzling sands, with fiercer heat,
Reflected back again.
O'er that dry ocean strayed
No wandering breath of air,
No palm-trees cast their cooling shade,
No water murmured there.
And thither, bowed with shame,
Spurned from her master's side,
The dark-browed child of Egypt came
Her wo and shame to hide.
Drooping and travel-worn,
The boy upon her hung,
"Who from his father's tent that morn
Like a gazelle had sprung.
His ebbing breath failed fast,
Glazed was his flashing eye ;
And in that fearful, desert waste,
She laid him down to die.
But when, in wild despair,
* She left him to his lot,
A. voice that filled that breathless air
Said, " Hagar, fear thou not."
Then o'er the hot sands flowed
A cooling, crystal stream,
And angels left their high abode
And ministered to them-.
Oft, when drear wastes surround
My faltering footsteps here,
I've thought I, too, heard that blest sound
Of " Wanderer, do not fear."
And then, to light my path
On through the evil land,
Have the twin angels, Hope and Faith,
WTaIked with me, hand to hand.
TO THE MEMORY OF CHAXXIXG.
" The prophets, do they live for ever?"— Zecfi. i. a.
THOSE spirits God ordained,
To stand the watchmen on the outer wall,
Upon whose souls the beams of truth first fall,
They who reveal the ideal, the unattained,
And to their age, in stirring tones and high,
Speak out for God, truth, man, and liberty —
Such prophets, do they die 1
When dust to dust returns,
And the freed spirit seeks again its God —
To those with whom the blessed ones have trod,
Are they then lost 1 No ! still their spirit burns
And quickens in the race ; the life they give,
Humanity receives, and they survive
While hope and virtue live.
The landmarks of their age.
High-priests, kings of the realm of mind, are they
A realm unbounded as posterity ;
The hopeful future is their heritage ;
Their words of truth, of love, and faith sublime,
To a dark world of doubt, despair, and crime,
Reecho through all time.
Such kindling words are thine,
Thou, o'er whose tomb the requiem soundeth still,
Thou from whose lips the silvery tones yet thrill
In many a bosom, waking life divine;
And since thy Master to the world gave token
That for Love's faith the creed of Fear was broken,
None higher have been spoken.
Thy reverent eye could see,
Though sinful, weak, and wedded to the clod,
The angel-soul still as the child of God,
Heir of his love, born to high destiny :
Not for thy country, creed, or sect, speakest thou,
But him who bears God's image on his brow,
Thy brother, high or low.
Great teachers formed thy youth,
As thou didst stand upon triy native shore,
In the calm sunshine, in the ocean's roar;
Nature and God spoke with thee, and the truth,
That o'er thy spirit then in radiance streamed,
And in thy life so calmly, brightly beamed,
Shall still shine on undirnmed.
Ages agone, like thee
The famed Greek with kindling aspect stood,
And blent his eloquence witli wind and flood,
By the blue waters of the JEgean sea ;
But he heard not their everlasting hymn :
His lofty soul with Error's cloud was dim,
And thy great teachers spake not unto him
AXXE C. BOTTA.
A THOUGHT BY THE SEASHORE.
BURY me by the sea.
When on my heart the hand of Death is prest,
If the soul lingereth ere she join the blest,
And haunts awhile her clay,
Then mid the forest shades I would not lie,
For the green leaves like me would droop and die.
Nor mid the homes of men,
The haunts of busy life, would I be laid :
There ever was I lone, and my vexed shade
Would sleep unquiet then;
The surging tide of life might overwhelm
The shadowy boundaries of the silent realm.
No sculptured marble pile
To bear my name be reared upon my breast —
Beneath its weight my free sou! would not rest;
But let the blue sky smile,
The changeless stars look lovingly on me,
And let me sleep beside this sounding sea :
This ever-beating heart
Of the great Universe ! here would the soul
Plume her soiled pinions for the final goal,
Ere she shou'd thence depart —
Here wou'd she fit her for the high abode —
Here by the sea, she wou'd be nearer God.
I feel his presence now :
Thou mightiest of his vassals, as I stand
And watch beside thee on the sparkling sand,
Thy crested billows bow ;
And as thy solemn chant swells through the air,
My spirit, awed, joins in thy ceaseless prayer.
Life's fitful fever o'er,
Here then would I repose, majestic sea ;
E'en now faint glimpses of eternity
Come o'er me on thy shore :
My thoughts from thee to highest themes are given,
As thy deep distant blue is lost in Heaven.
THE DUMB CREATION.
DEAL kindly with those speechless ones,
That throng our gladsome earth ;
Say not the bounteous gift of life
Alone is nothing worth.
What though with mournful memories
They sigh not for the past 1
What though their ever joyous Now
No future overcast 1
No aspirations fill their breast
With longings undefined ;
They live, they love, and they are blest,
For what they seek they find.
They see no mystery in the stars,
No wonder in the plain,
And Life's enigma wakes in them
No questions dark and vain.
To them earth is a final home,
A bright and blest abode ;
Their lives unconsciously flow on
In harmony with God.
To this fair world our human hearts
Their hopes and longings bring,
And o'er its beauty and its bloom
Their own dark shadows fling.
Between the future and the past
In wild unrest we stand,
And ever as our feet advance,
Retreats the promised land.
And though Love, Fame, and Wealth and Power,
Bind in their gilded band,
We pine to grasp the unattained —
The something still beyond.
And, beating on their prison bars,
Our spirits ask more room,
And with unanswered questionings,
They pierce beyond the tomb.
Then say thou not, oh, doubtful heart !
There is no life to come :
That in some tearless, cloudless land,
Thou shalt not find thy home.
THE WOUNDED VULTURE.
A KIXGLY vulture sat alone,
Lord of the ruin round,
Where Egypt's ancient monuments
Upon the desert frowned.
A hunter's eager eye had marked
The form of that proud bird,
And through the voiceless solitude
His ringing shot was heard.
It rent that vulture's plumed breast,
Aimed with unerring hand,
And his life-blood gushed warm and red
Upon the yellow sand.
No struggle marked the deadly wound,
He gave no piercing cry,
But calmly spread his giant wings,
And sought the upper sky.
In vain with swift pursuing shot
The hunter seeks his prey,
Circling and circling upward still
On his majestic way.
Up to the blue empyrean
He wings his steady flight,
Till his receding form is lost
In the full flood of light.
Oh, wounded heart ! oh, suffering soul !
Sit not with folded wing,
Where broken dreams and ruined hopes
Their mournful shadows fling.
Outspread thy pinions like that bird,
Take thou the path sublime,
Beyong the flying shafts of Fate,
Beyond the wounds of Time.
Mount upward ! brave the clouds and storms?
Above life's desert plain
There is a calmer, purer air,
A heaven thou, too, may'st gain.
And as that dim, ascending form
Was lost in day's broad light,
So shall thine earthly sorrrows fade,
Lost in the Infinite.
ANNE C. BOTTA.
EROS.
As when, untaught and blind,
To the mute stone the pagan bows his knee,
Spirit of Love, phantom of my own mind,
So have I worshipped thee !
When first a laughing child,
I gazed on Nature with a wondering eye,
I learned of her, in calm and tempest wild,
This thirst for sympathy.
I saw the flowers appear,
And spread their petals out to meet the sun,
The dewdrops on their glistening leaves draw near
And mingle into one.
And if a harp was stirred
By the soft pulses of some wandering sound,
Attuned to the same key, then I have heard
Its chords untouched respond.
Fast through the vaulted sky,
Giving no sound or light, when storms were loud,
I saw the electric cloud in silence fly,
Seeking its sister cloud.
I saw the winds, and sea,
And all the hosts of heaven in bright array,
Governed by this sweet law of sympathy,
Roll on their destined way.
And then my spirit pined,
And, like the sea-shell for its parent sea,
Moaned for those kindred souls it could not find,
And panted to be free.
And then came wild Despair,
And laid her palsying hand upon my soul,
And her dread ministers were with her there —
The dagger and the bowl-
O God of life and light,
Thou who didst stay my hand in that dread hour,
Thou who didst save me in that fearful night
Of maddening Passion's power —
Before thv throne I bow :
I tear my worshipped idols from their shrine;*
I give to thee, though bruised and aching now,
This heart — oh ! make it thine.
I've sought to fill in vain
Its lonely, silent depths with human love :
Help me to cast away each earthly chain,
And rise to thee above.
TO , IX OBSCURITY.
IN- full-orbed splendor now the queen of Night
Among the stars walks in her pride of place,
And now again we miss that flood of light
That overflowed the azure fields of space.
But though her brightness meets no more the gaze,
As in her wonted orbit she declines,
iret not extinguished are her silver rays —
She shines in shadow, but not less she shines.
Soon will she rise again upon the sight,
Passing the darkened shape that bids her wane ;
Then shall we see her, in unclouded light,
T^k ; her own place among the stirs again.
ON A PICTURE OF HARVEY BIRCH.
FROM COOPER'S "STY."
I KNOW not if thy noble worth
My country's annals claim,
For in her brief, bright history
I have not read thy name.
I know not if thou e'er didst live,
Save in the vivid thought
Of him who chronicled thy life, .
With silent suffering fraught.
Yet in thy history I see
Full many a great soul's' lot,
Who joins that martyr-army's ranks,
That the world knoweth not ;
Who can not weep " melodious tears"
For fame or sympathy,
But who in silence bear their doom
To suffer and to die ;
For whom no poet's harp is struck,
No laurel wreath is twined ;
Who pass unheard, unknown away,
And leave no trace behind ;
Who, but for their unwavering trust
In Justice, Truth, and God.
Would faint upon their weary way,
And perish by the road.
Truth, Justice, God ! oh, mighty faith,
To bear us up unharmed ;
The gates of hell may not prevail
Against a soul so armed.
TO
-, WITH FLOWERS.
Go, ye sweet messengers,
To that dim-lighted room,
Where lettered wisdom from the walls
Sheds a delightful gloom ;
Where sits in thought profound
One in the noon of life,
Whose flashing eye and fevered brovr
Tell of the inward strife ;
Who in those wells of lore
Seeks for the pearls of truth,
And to Ambition's fever dream
Gives his repose and youth.
To him, sweet ministers,
Ye shall a lesson teach ;
Go in your fleeting loveliness,
More eloquent than speech.
Tell him in laurel wreaths
No perfume e'er is found,
And that upon a crown of thorns
Those leaves are ever bound.
Thoughts fresh as your own hues
Bear ye to that abode —
Speak of the sunshine and the sky,
Of Nature and of God.
ANNE C. BOTTA.
SONNETS.
I. LOVE.
Go forth in life, oh, friend ! not seeking love,
A mendicant that with imploring eye
And outstretched hand asks of the passers-by
The alms his strong necessities may move.
For such poor love, to pity near allied,
Thy generous spirit may not stoop and wait,
A suppliant whose prayer may be denied
Like a spurned beggar's at a palace-gate :
But thy heart's affluence lavish uncontrolled —
'1 he largess of thy love give full and free,
As monarchs in their progress scatter gold ;
And be thy Iv.-art like the exhaust ess sea,
That must its wealth of c!oud and dew.bestow,
Though tributary streams or ebb or flow.
II. THE LAKE AND STAR.
THE mountain lake, o'ershadowed by the hills,
May still gaze heavenward on the evening star
Whose distant light its dark recesses fills,
Though boundless distance must divide them far;
Still may the lake the star's bright image bear,
Sti.I may the star from its b'ue ether dome
Shower down its silver beams across the gloom,
And light the wave that wanders darkly there.
Star of my life ! thus do I turn to thee
Amid the shadows that above me roll ;
Thus from thy distant sphere thou shinest on me,
Thus does thine image float upon my soul,
Through the wide space that must our lives dissever
Far as the lake and star, ah me, for ever !
III. A II KM EM BR AST E.
Ps LOHT closes round me, and wild threatening forms
Clasp me with icy arms and chain me down,
And bind upon my brow a cypress crown
Dewy with tears, and Heaven frowns dark with
But the one glorious memory of thee [storms :
Rises upon my path to guide and bless,
The bright Shekinah of the wilderness —
The po'ar star upon a trackless soa,
The beaming Pharos of the unreached shore —
It spans the clouds that gather o'er my way,
The rainbow of my life's tempestuous day.
Oh, bless d thought ! stay with me evermore,
And shed thy lustrous beams where midnight glooms,
As fragatit lamps burned in the ancient tombs.
IV. THE SUN AND STREAM.
As some dark stream within a. cavern's breast
Flows murmuring, moaning for the distant sun,
So ere I met thee, murmuring its unrest,
Did my life's current coldly, darkly run.
And as that stream beneath the sun's full gaze
Its separate course and life no more maintains,
But now absorbed, transfused far o'er the plains,
It floats ethereulized in those warm rays,
So in the sunlight of thy fervid love
My heart, so long to earth's dark channels given,
Now soars all pain, all i 1, all doubt above,
And breathes the ether of the upper heaven :
So tliy hi_!;h spirit holds arid governs mine,
So is my lift, my being lost in thine ,
V. TO .
AH no ! my love knows no vain jealousy :
The rose that blooms and lives but in the sun,
Asks not what other flowers he shines upon,
If he but shine on her. Enough for me
Thus in thy light to dwell, and thus to share
The sunshine of thy smile with all things fair
I know thou 'rt vowed to Beauty, not to Love :
I would not stay thy footsteps from one shrine,
Nor would I bind thee by a sigh to mine.
For me — I have no lingering wish to rove ;
For though I worship all things fair, like thee,
Of outward grace, of soul-nobility,
Happier than thou, I find them all in one,
And I would worship at thy shrine alone !
VI. THE HONEY-BEE.
THE honey-bee that wanders a'l day long
The field, the woodland, and the garden o'er,
To g ither in his fragrant winter store,
Humming in calm content his quiet song,
Seeks not alone the rose's glowing breast,
The lily's dainty cup, the violet's lips —
But from all rank and noxious weeds he sips
The single drop of sweetness closely prest
Within the poison chalice. Thus if we
Seek only to draw forth the hidden sweet
In all the varied human flowers we meet,
In the wide garden of humanitv,
And, like the bee, if home the spoil we bear,
Hived in our hearts it turns the nectar there.
VII. ASPIRATION.
THE planted seed, consigned to common earth,
Disdains to moulder with the baser clay,
But rises up to meet the light of day,
Spreads all its leaves, and flowers, and tendrils forth
And, bathed and ripened in the genial ray,
Pours out its perfume on the wandering gales,
Till in that fragrant breath its life exhales.
So this immortal germ within my breast
Wou'd strive to pierce the du'l, dark clod of sense ,
With aspirations, wing d and intense,
Would so stretch upward, in its tireless quest,
To meet the Central Soul, its source, its rest :
So in the fragrance of the immortal flower, [pour
High thoughts and noble deeds, its life it would out-
VITI. TO THE SAVIOR.
OH thou who once on earth, beneath the weight
Of our mortality didst live and move,
The in • irnation of profoundest love ;
Who on t'.ie Cross that love didst consummate—
Whose deep and ample fulness could embrace
The poorest, meanest of our fallen race :
How shall we e'er that boundless debt repay ?
Bv long loud prayers in gorgeous temples said ?
By rich ob'ations on thine a', tars laid 1
Ah, no ! not thus thou didst appoint the way:
When thou wast bowed our human wo beneath,
Then as a legacy thou didst bequeath
Earth's sorrowing children to our ministry —
And as we do to them, we do to thee.
ANNE C. BOTTA.
IX. FAITH.
SECURELY cahinod in the ship below, [sea,
Through darkness and through storm I cross the
A path ess wilderness of waves to me :
But yet I do not fear, because I know
That he who guides the good ship o'er that waste
Sees in the stars her shining pathway traced.
Blindfold I walk this life's bewildering maze,
Up flinty steep, through frozen mountain pass,
Through thornset barren and through deep morass,
But strong in faith I tread the uneven ways,
And bare my head unshrinking to the b:ast,
Because my Father's arm is round me cast ;
And if the way seems rough, I only clasp
The hand that leads me with a firmer grasp.
BONKS IN THE DESERT.
WHERE pilgrims seek the Prophet's toml
Across the Arabian waste,
Upon the ever-shifting sands
A fearful path is traced.
Far up to the horizon's verge,
The traveller sees it rise —
A line of ghastly bones that bleach
Beneath those burning skies.
Across it, tempest and simoom
The desert-sands have strewed,
But still that line of spectral white
For ever is renewed.
For while along that burning track
The caravans 'nove on,
Still do the wayworn pilgrims fall
Ere ypt the shrine be won.
There the tired camel lays him down
And shuts his gentle eves ;
And there the fiery rider droops,
Toward Mecca looks, and dies.
They fall unheeded from the ranks :
On sweeps the endless train ;
But there, to mark the desert path,
Their whitening bones remain.
As thus I read the mournful tale
Upon the traveller's page,
I thought how like the march of life
Is this sad pilgrimage.
For every heart hath some fair dream,
Some object unattained,
And far off in the distance lies
Some Mecca to be gained.
But beauty, manhood, love, and power,
Go in their morning down,
And longing eyes and outstretched arms
Tell of the goal unvvon.
The mighty caravan of life
Above their dust may sweep,
Nor shout nor tramp'ing feet shall break
The rest of those who sleep.
Oh, fountains that I have not reached,
That gush far off e'en now,
When shall I quench my spirit's thirst
Where your sweet waters flow !
Oh, Mecca of my lifelong dreams,
Cloud palaces that rise
In that far distance pierced by hope,
When will ye greet mine eyes !
The shadows lengthen toward the east
From the declining sun,
And the pilgrim, as ye still recede,
Sighs for the journey done !
CHRIST BETRAYED.
EIGHTEEN hundred years agone
Was that deed of darkness done —
Was that sacred, thorn-crowned head
To a shameful death betrayed,
And Iscariot's traitor name
Blazoned in eternal shame.
Thou, disciple of our time,
Follower of the faith sublime,
WTho with high and holy scorn
Of that traitorous deed dost burn,
Though the years may never more
To our earth that form restore,
The Christ-Spirit ever lives —
Ever in thy heart he strives.
WThen pale Misery mutely calls,
When thy tempted brother falls,
When thy gentle words may chain
Hate, and Anger, and Disdain,
Or thy loving smile impart
Courage to some sinking heart :
When within thy troubled breast
Good and evil thoughts contest,
Though unconscious thou may'st be.
The Christ-Spirit strives with thee.
When he trod the Holy Land,
With his small disciple band,
And the fated hour had come
For that august martyrdom —
When the man, the human love,
And the God within him strove —
As in Gethsemane he wept,
They, the faithless watchers, slept :
WThile for them he wept and prayed,
One denied and one betrayed !
If to-day thou turn'st aside
In thy luxury and pride,
Wrapped within thyself and blind
To the sorrows of thy kind,
Thou a faithless watch dost keep —
Thou art one of those who sleep;
Or, if waking thou dost see
Nothing of Divinity
In our fallen, struggling race —
If in them thou seest no trace
Of a glory dimmed, not gone,
Of a Future to be won,
Of a Future, hopeful, high,
Thou, like Peter, dost deny :
But if, seeing, thou believest,
If the Evangel thou receivest,
Yet, if thou art bound to Sin,
False to the Ideal within,
Slave of Ease or slave of Gold,
Thou the Son of God hast sold !
SMO
AXXE C. BOTTA.
THE WASTED FOUNTAINS.
And their nobles have sent their htlle ones to tlie waters; they rame
to the nits and ibiind no wnter; they returned with their vessels
empty. — Jtremiult xiv. 3.
WHEX the youthful fever of the soul
Is awakened in thee first,
And thou goest like Judah's children forth
To s!ake tlie burning thirst;
And when dry and wasted, like the springs
Sought by that little band,
Before thee in their emptiness
Life's broken cisterns stand ;
When the golden fruits that tempted
7 urn to ashes on the taste,
And thine early visions fade and pass
Like the mirage of the waste ;
When faith darkens and hopes vanish
In the shade of coming years,
And the urn thou bearest is empty,
Or o'erflovving with thy tears ;
Though the transient springs have failed thee,
Though the founts of youth are dried,
Wilt thou among the mouldering stones
In weariness abide 1
Wilt thou sit among the ruins,
With all words of cheer unspoken,
Till the silver cord is loosened,
Till the golden bowl is broken 7
Up and onward ! toward the east
Green oases thou shalt find —
Streams that rise from higher sources
Than the pools thou leavest behind.
Life has import more inspiring
Than the fancies of thy youth ;
It has hopes as high as heaven ;
It has labor, it has truth ;
It has wrongs that may be righted,
Noble deeds that may be done,
Its great battles are unfought,
Its great triumphs are unwon.
Therf is rising from its troubled deeps
A low, unceasing moan ;
There are aching, there are breaking
Other hearts beside thine own.
From strong limbs that should be chainless,
There are fetters to unbind ;
There are words to raise the fallen;
There is light to give the blind ;
There are crushed and broken spirits
That electric thoughts may thrill;
Lofty dreams to be embodied
By the might of one strong will.
There are God and peace above thee :
Wilt thou languish in despair 1
Tread thy griefs beneath thy feet,
Scale the walls of heaven by prayer -
'T is the key of the apostle
That opens heaven from below ;
'Tis the ladder of the patriarch,
Whereon angels come and go !
PAUL PREACHING AT ATHENS
GREECE ! hear that joyful sound !
A stranger's voice upon thy sacred hill,
Whose tones shall bid the slumbering nations roun 1
Wake with convulsive thrill.
Athenians ! gather there, he brings you words
Brighter than all your boasted lore affords.
He brings you news of One
Above Olympian Jove; One in whose light
Your gods shall fade like stars before the sun.
On your bewildered night
That UNKNOWN GOD of whom ye darkly drearr
In all his burning radiance shall beam.
Behold, he bids you rise
From your dark worship round that idol shrine ;
He points to Him who reared your starry skies,
And bade your Phoebus shine.
Lift up your souls from where in dust ye how ;
That God of gods commands your homage now.
But, brighter tidings still !
He tells of One whose precious blood was spilt
In lavish streams upon Judea's hill,
A ransom for your guilt ;
Who triumphed o'er the grave, and br^>ke its chain ;
Who conquered Death and Hell, and rose again.
Sages of Greece ! come near ;
Spirits of daring thought and giant mould,
Ye questioners of Time and Nature, hear
Mysteries before untold !
Immortal life revealed ! light for which ye
Have tasked in vain your proud philosophy.
Searchers for some First Cause
Through doubt and darkness — lo ! he points to One
Where all your vaunted reason lost must pause,
Too vast to think upon :
That was from everlasting — that shall be
To everlasting still, eternally !
Ye followers of him
Who deemed his soul a spark of Deity !
Your fancies fade — your master's dreams grow
To this reality.
Stoic ! unbend that brow, drink in that sound.
Skeptic ! dispel those doubts, the truth is found.
Greece ! though thy sculptured wa'Is
Have with thy triumphs and thy glories rung,
And through thy temples and thy pillared halls
Immortal poets sung —
No sounds like these have rent your startled air :
They open realms of light and bid you enter there.
EMILY JUDSON.
(Born 1817-Died 1854).
Miss EMILY CHUBBUCK, who under the
graceful pseuclonyme of ' Fanny Forester' be
came known as one of the most ingenious and
brilliant female writers of the country, is a
native of central New York ; and af er being
thoroughly educated in the sciences suitable
to her sex, and making herself familiar with
the best literature by a loving and critical
study of those au:hors who are the standards
of thought a;id diction, she became a teacher
in a female seminary at Utica, where she was
residing when she made her first essays as a
writer — some poetical contributions to the
Knickerbocker Magazine, and several small
volumes illustrative of practical religion, is
sued by the American Baptist Publication So-
cie y. Early in June, 1844, while visiting
the ci:y of New York, she wrote a hasty
baga.elle for the New Mirror, then recent
ly established by Gen. Morris and Mr. N. P.
Willis, scarcely thinking or caring that it
would for a moment receive their attention.
But Mr. Willis's perception of beauty is in-
stinc ive: he saw at a glance that his corre
spondent was possessed of extreme clever-
ne:>s — perhaps of genius — and his liberal
bir perfecjy sincere applause led Miss Chub-
buc'c to thai career of literature which soon
made her no in de plume as familiar as the
names of the most popular authors. The
first paper under the signature of " Fanny
Fores er" was published on ihe twenty-ninth
of June in the New Mirror, and it was fol
lowed rapidly by all those sketches, essays,
and poems, which, two years af erward, when
she was on the eve of sailing for India, were
reprinted under the title of Alderbrook.
In 184b', the missionary Judson — after a
long career of usefulness and true glory in
the East — returned to America, where he
was received by the churches in a manner
worthy of the greatness of his services to re
ligion and civilization. " Fanny Forester,"
on account of impaired health, sought the ge
nial climate of Philadelphia for the succeed
ing winter, and here he came to visit her and
persuade her to write the mortal history of
one who had joined the angels, leaving him
16
alone in the ship m which they had started to
gether to revisit their native country. When
the apostle of theBurmans described in sen
tences glowing with his fine enthusiasm, the
condition of the missionary field, white with
the harvests which so few were reaping, she
kindled at the recital, and forgetting the bril
liant prospects of success in letters, the dear
est ties of home affections, determined to
twine for the laurel which she cast aside, a
wreath from these fields in the Orient, the
grains in which should be stars to circle her
brows forever, and by their radiance to make
more glorious the looked-for triumph of the
Harvester of the world.
Early in the spring she returned to the
home of her childhood, to bid a last farewell
to all its inmates. Then she wrote — "My
heart is heavy with sorrow. The cup at my
lips is very bitter. Heaven help me ! White
hairs are bending in submissive grief, and
age-dimmed eyes are dimmer with tears ;
young spirits have lost their joyousness,
young lips forget to smile, and bounding
hearts and bounding feet are stilled. Oh,
the rending of ties, knitted at the first open
ing of the infant eye, and strengthened by
numberless acts of love, is a sorrowful thing !
To make the grave the only door to a meet
ing with those in whose bosoms we nestled,
in whose hearts we trusted long before we
knew how precious was such love and trust,
brings wilh it an overpowering weight of
solemnity. But a grave is yawning for each
one of us; and is it much to choose whether
we sever the tie that binds us here to-dav, or
lie down on the morrow ? Ah, the ' weaver's
shuttle' is flying ; the ' flower of the grass' is
withering; the space is almost measured;
the tale nearly told ; the dark valley is close
before us — tread we with care ! My mother
we may neither of us close the other's dark
ened eyes, and fold the cold hands upon the
bosom ; we may neither of us watch, the soJ
greening and withering above the other's
ashes: but there are duties for us even more
sacred than these. But a few steps, mothei
— difficult the path may be, but very bri<rhi
241
212
EMILY JUDSON.
— and then we put on the rohe of immortali
ty, and meet to part never more. And we
shall not be apart even on earih. There is
an electric chain passing from heart to heart
through the throne of the Eternal, and we
may k<-q> its links all brightly burnished by
the breath of prayer. Still pray for me,
mother, as in days gone by. Thou bidst rne
iro. The smile comes again to thy lip, and
ihe light to thine eye, fur thou hast pleasure
ia the sacrifice. Thy blessing ! Farewell,
my mother, and ye loved ones of the same
hearthstone!"
She was married to Dr. Judson, and in
July sailed with him on his return to India,
where she is now occupied with the duties
of her mission. Soon after her arrival, the
barbarians robbed her of all the gifts and sou
venirs, all the dresses, and all -the cherished
books, that she carried from America ; and
other trials of her faith came — but none will
ever make her look back with regret from
the task set before her: and her life yet to
be lived, it is trusted, will sometime, many
years from now, fill the brightest pages in
our missionary history.
The longest of Mrs. Judson's poems is As-
taroga, or the Maid of the Rock, in four can
tos, containing altogether about one hundred
and fifty verses of the Spenserian measure.
This was written in 1844, and it is inferior
to several of her later compositions, though
there is spirit and grace in some of its de
scriptions of scenery and of Indian life.- Her
largest prose work, except Alderbrook, is a
very beautiful memoir of Mrs. Sarah Judson,
published in New York in 1848. Among the
latest of her poems is the little piece entitled
My Bird, of which the biographical signifi
cance is sufficiently apparent.
THE WEAVER.
A WKAVKR sat by the side of his loom,
A -flinging his shuttle fast ;
And a thread that would wear till the hour of doom
Was added at every cast.
His warp had been by the angels spun,
And his weft was bright and new.
Like threads which the morning unhraids from the
sun,
All jewelled over with dew.
And fresh-lipped, bright-eyed, beautiful flowers
In the rich, soft web were bedded ;
And b'ithe to the weaver sped onward the hours:
Not yet were Time's feet leaded !
But something there came slow stea ing by,
And a shade on the fabric fell ;
And 1 saw that the shuttle less blithely did fly —
For thought hath a wearisome spell!
And a thread that next o'er the warp was lain,
Was of melancholy gray ;
And anon I marked there a tear-drop's stain,
Where the flowers had fallen away.
But still the weaver kept weaving on,
Though the fabric all was gray ;
And the flowers, and the buds, and the leaves, were
gone,
And the gold threads cankered lay.
And dark — and still darker — and darker grew
Each newly-woven thread ;
And some there were of a death-mocking hue,*
And some of a bloody red.
And things all strange were woven in,
Sighs, and down-crushed hopes, and fears ;
And the web was broken, and poor, and thin,
And i' dripped with living tears.
And the weaver fain would have flung it aside,
But he knew it would be a sin ;
So in light and in gloom the shuttle he plied,
A-weaving these life-cords in.
And as he wove, and, weeping, still wove,
A tempter stole him nigh ;
And, with glozing words, he to win him strove —
But the weaver turned his eye.
He upward turned his eye to heaven,
And still wove on — on — on !
Till the last, last cord from his heart was riven,
And the tissue strange was done.
Then he threw it about his shoulders bowed,
And about his grizzled head ;
And gathering close the folds of his shroud,
Lav him down among the dead.
And I after saw, in a robe of l.:ghf,
The weaver in the sky :
The angels' wings were not more bright,
And the stars grew pa'e it ni^h.
And I saw, mid the folds, all the iris-hued flowers
That beneath his touch had sprung;
More beautiful far than these stray ones of ours,
Which the angels have to us flung.
And wherever a tear run! fallen down,
Gleamed out a diamond rare ;
And jewels befitting a monarch's crown
Were the footprints left by Care.
And wherever had swept the breath of a sigh,
Was left a rich perfume ;
And with light from the fountain of bliss in the sky
Shone the labor of Sorrow and Gloom.
And then I prayed, " When my last work is done,
And the silver life-cord riven,
Be the stain of Sorrow the deepest one
That I bear with me to heaven !"
EMILY JUDSON.
.MINISTERING ANGELS-
MOTHF.H, has the dove that nestled
Lovingly upon thy breast,
Folded up his little pinion,
And in darkness gone to rest]
Nav, the grave is dark and dreary,
Bit- the lost one is not there;
Hear'st thou not its gentle whisper,
Floating on the ambient air 1
It is near thee, gentle mother,
Near thee at the evening hour;
Its soft kiss is in the zephyr,
It looks up from every flower.
A.nd when, Night's dark shadows fleeing,
Low thou bendest thee in prayer,
And thy heart feels nearest heaven,
Then thy angel babe is there !
Maiden, has thy noble brother,
On whose manly form thine eye
Loved fu 1 oft in pride to linger,
On whose heart thou couldst rely,
Though all other hearts deceived thee,
All proved hol'ow, earth grew drear,
Whose protection, ever o'er thee,
Hid thee from the cold world's sneer —
H.is he left thee here to struggle.
All unaided on thy way 1
Nay ; he still can cuide and guard thee,
Still thy faltering steps can stay:
Still, when danger hovers o'er thee,
He than danger is more near;
When in grief thou'st none to pity,
He, the sainted, marks each tear.
Lover, is the light extinguished
Of the iiem that, in thy heart
Hidden dee, ly, to thy being
All its sunshine cou'd impart]
Look above ! 't is burning brighter
Than the very stars in heaven ;
And to light thy dangerous pathway,
All its new-found g'ory 's given.
With the sons of earth commingling,
Thou the loved one mayst forget ;
Bright eyes flashing, tresses waving,
May have pjwer to win thee yet;
But e'en then that guardian spirit
Oft will whisper in thine ear,
And in silence, and at midnight,
Tnou wilt know she hovers near.
•Orphan, thou most sorely stricken
Of t'.ie mourners thronging earth,
Clouds half veil thy brightest sunshine,
Sadness mingles with thy mirth.
Vet, although that gentle bosom,
Which has pillowed oft thy head,
Now is cold, thy mother's spirit
Can not rest among the dead.
Still her watchful eye is o'er thee
Through the day, and still at night
Hers the eye that guards thy slumber,
Making thy young dreams so bright.
Oh! the friends, the friends we've cherished,
How we weep to see them die !
All unthinking they're the angels
That will guide us to the sky !
TO MY MOTHER.
WRITTEN AFTER A SHORT ABSENCE.
GIVE me my old seat, mother,
With my head upon thy knee ;
I've passed through many a changing scene.
Since thus I sat by thee.
Oh ! let me look into thine eyes :
Their mef k, soft, loving light
Falls like a gleam of holiness
Upon my heart to-night.
T 've not been long away, mother ;
Few suns have rose and set,
Since last the tear-drop on thy cheek
My lips in kisses met;
'Tis but a little time, I know,
But very long it seems,
Though every night I come to thee,
Dear mother, in my dreams.
The world has kindly dealt, mother,
By the chi'd thou lovest so well ;
Thy prayers have circled round her path,
And 'twas their ho'y spell
W7hich made that path so clearly bright,
Which strewed the roses there ;
Wrhich gave the light, and cast the balm
On every breath of air.
I bear a happy heart, mother —
A happier never beat ;
And even now new buds of hope
Are bursting at my feet.
Oh, mother ! life may be " a dream,"
But if such dreams are given,
While at the portal thus we stand,
What are the truths of heaven 1
I bear a happy heart, mother;
Yet, when fond eyes I see,
And hear soft tones and winning words,
I ever think of thee.
And then, the tear my spirit weeps
Unbidden fills my eye ;
And like a homeless dove, I long
Unto thy breast to fly.
Then, I am very sad, mother,
I 'm very sad and lone ;
Oh ! there 's no heart whose inmost fold
Opes to me like thine own !
Though sunny smi'es wreathe blooming lip.-'
While love-tones meet my ear —
My mother, one fond glance of thine
Were thousand times more dear.
Then, with a closer clasp, mother,
Now hold me to thy heart ;
I'd feel it beating 'gainst my own
Once more before we part.
And, mother, to this lovelit spoi,
When I am far away,
Come oft — too oft thou canst not come !-^
An 1 for thy darling pray.
244
EMILY JUD ON.
TO SPRING.
A WKT.COMK, pretty maiden —
Dainty -footed Spring!
Thou, with the treasures laden
No other hand can bring.
While onward thou art tripping,
Children all around are skipping,
\nd the low brown eaves are dripping
With the gladsomest of tears.
From mossed old trees are bursting
The tiny specks of green ;
Long have their pores been thirsting
For the gushing sap, I ween ;
With scarce a shade molesting,
The laughing light is resting
On the slender group that's cresting
Yon fresh, green hillock's brow.
At the timid flower it glances,
Beneath the maple's shade ;
And foiled, it lightly dances
With the bars the boughs have made
On the waters of the river,
Still in a winter's shiver,
Its golden streamers quiver,
O'er-brimmed with lusty life.
The folded buds are blushing
On the gnarled apple-tree ;
While, the small grass-blades a-crushing,
Children gather them to see ;
And the bee, thus early coming,
All around the clusters humming,
Upon the bland air thrumming,
Piunges to the nectared sweets.
Life, life, the fields is flushing !
Joy springs up from the ground ;
And joyous strains are gushing
From the wood'and all around ;
From birds on wild wings wheeling,
Up from the cottage stealing,
Fro n the full-voiced woodman pealing,
Ring out the tones of joy.
Thrice welcome, pretty maiden !
With thy kiss upon my cheek,
Howo'er with care o'erladen,
Of care I could not speak ;
Now, I '11 make a truce with sorrow,
And not one cloud will borrow
the dark, unsunned morrow ;
I will be a child with thee.
DEATH.
WHEX day is dying in the west,
Each flickering ray of crimson light,
The sky, in gold and purple dressed,
The cloud, with glory all bedight,
And every shade that ushers night,
And each cool breeze that comes to weave
Its dampness with my curls — all leave
A lesson sad !
Last night I plucked a half-shut flower,
Which blushed and nodded on its stem;
A thing to grace a Peri's bower;
It seemed to me some priceless gem,
Dropped from an angel's diadem ;
But soon the blossom drooping lay,
And, as it withered, seemed to say,
" We're passing all !"
I loved a fair-haired, gentle boy,
(A bud of brightness — ah, too rare !)
I loved him, and I saw with joy
Heaven's purity all centred there :
But he went up, that heaven to share;
And, as his spirit from him stole,
His last look graved upon my soul,
" Learn thus to die !"
I've seen the star that glowed in heaven,
W hen other stars seemed half asleep,
As though from its proud station driven,
Go rushing down the azure steep,
Through space unmeasured, dark, and deep ;
And, as it vanished far in night,
I read by its departing light,
" Thus perish all !"
I 've, in its dotage, seen the year,
Worn out and weary, struggling on,
Till falling prostrate on its bier,
Time marked another cycle gone ;
And, as I heard the dying moan,
Upon my trembling heart there fell
The awful words, as by a spell,
" Death, death to all !"
They come on every breath of air,
Wrhich sighs its feeble life away f
They're whispered by each blossom fair,
Which folds a lid at close of day ;'
There's naught ef earth, or sad or gay,
There's naught below the starlit skies,
But leaves one lesson as it flies —
" Thou too must die !"
And numberless those silvery chords,
Dissevered by the spoiler's hand,
But each in breaking still affords
A tone to say we all are banned ;
And on each brow by death-damps spanned,
The pall, the slowly moving hearse,
Is traced the burden of my verse —
" Death, death to man !"
LIGHTS AND SHADES.
IF there be light upon my being's cloud,
I'll cast o'er other hearts its cheering ray;
'T will add new brightness to my toilsome way
But when my spirit's sadness doth enshroud
Hope's coruscations, Pleasure's meteor gleam,
And darkness settles down upon my heart,
And Care exerts her blighting, cankering art,
Then, then, what I am not I'll strive to seem
Wo has no right her burden to divide,
To cast her shadows o'er a sunny soul :
So, though my bark rock on the troubled tide,
Or lie, half wrecked, upon the hidden shoal,
The flowers of Hope shall garland it the while,
Though plucked from out her urn in death t,o smil«
EMILY JUDSON.
245
CLINGING TO EARTH.
OH, do not let me die ! the earth is bright,
And I am earthly, so I love it well ;
Though heaven is holier, and all full of light,
Yet I am frail, and with frail things would dwell.
[ can not die ! the flowers of earthly love
Shed their rich fragrance on a kindred heart ;
There may be purer, brighter flowers above,
Yet with these ones 't would be too hard to part.
I dream of heaven, and well I love these dreams,
They scatter sunlight on my varying way ;
But mid the clouds of earth are priceless gleams
Of brightness, and on earth oh let me stay.
It is not that my lot is void of gloom,
That sadness never circles round my heart ;
Nor that I fear the darkness of the tomb,
That I would never from the earth depart.
'T is that I love the world — its cares, its sorrows,
Its bounding hopes, its feelings fresh and warm,
Each cloud it wears, and every light it borrows —
Loves, wishes, fears, the sunshine and the storm ;
I love them all : but closer still the loving
Twine with my being's cords and make m} life ;
And while within this sunlight I am moving,
I well can bide the storms of worldly strife.
Then do not let me die ! for earth is bright,
And I am earthly, so I love it well ;
Heaven is a land of holiness and light,
But I am frail, and with the frail would dwell.
ASPIRING TO HEAVEN.
YES, let me die ! Am I of spirit-birth,
And shall I linger here where spirits fell,
Loving the stain they cast on all of earth ]
Oh make me pure, with pure ones e'er to dwell !
'Tis sweet to die ! The flowers of earthly love
(Fair, frail, spring blossoms) early droop and die ;
But all their fragrance is exhaled above,
Upon our spirits evermore to lie.
Life is a dream, a bright but fleeting dream,
I can but love ; but then my soul awakes,
And from the mist of earthliness a gleam
Of heavenly light, of truth immortal, breaks.
[ shrink not from the shadows Sorrow flings
Aeross my pathway ; nor from cares that rise
[n every footprint ; for each shadow brings
Sunshine and rainbow as it glooms and flies.
But heaven is dearer. There I have my treasure ;
There angels fold in love their snowy wings ;
There sainted lips chant in celestial measure,
And spirit fingers stray o'er heav'n-wrought strings
There loving eyes are to the portals straying ;
There arms extend, a wanderer to fold ;
There waits a dearer, holier One, arraying
His own in spotless robes and crowns of gold.
Then let me die ! My spirit longs for heaven,
In that pure bosom evermore to rest ;
But, if to labor longer here be given,
" Father, thy wU be done !" and I am blest.
THE BUDS OF THE SARANAC*
Ax angel breathed upon a budding flower,
And on that breath the bud went up to heaven,
Yet left a fragrance in the little bower
To which its first warm blushes had been given ,
And, by that fragrance nursed, another grew,
And so they both had being in the last,
And on this one distilled heaven's choicest dew,
And rays of glorious light wefe on it cast,
Until the floweret claimed a higher birth,
And would not open on a scene so drear,
For it was more of paradise than earth,
And strains from thence came ever floating near ;
And so it passed, and long ere noontide's hour,
The buds of earth had oped, a heaven-born flower.
MY BIRD.
ERE last years moon had left the sky,
A birdling sought my Indian nest,
And folded, oh ! so lovingly,
Its tiny wings upon my breast.
From morn till evening's purple tinge,
In winsome helplessness she lies ;
Two rose-leaves, with a silken fringe,
Shut softly on her starry eyes.
There 's not in Ind a lovelier bird ;
Broad earth owns not a happier nest;
0 God, thou hast a fountain stirred,
Whose waters never more shall rest !
This beautiful, mysterious thing,
This seeming visitant from Heaven,
This bird with the immortal wing,
To me — to me, thy hand has given.
The pulse first caught its tiny stroke,
The blood its crimson hue, from mine :
This life, which I have dared invoke,
Henceforth is parallel with thine.
A silent aw,e is in my room —
I tremble with delicious fear;
The future, with its light and gloom,
Time and eternity are here.
Doubts, hopes, in eager tumult rise ;
Hear, oh my God ! one earnest prayei
Room for my bird in paradise,
And give her angel plumage there !
Maulmain,(hidia,) January, 1848.
* Lucretia and Margaret Davidson.
ELIZABETH J. EAMES.
MRS. EAMES, whose maiden name was
j£sup,.is a native of the state of New York,
,.>nd her early years were passed on the banks
of the Hudson. In 1837 she was married to
Mr. W. S. Eames, and removed to New Hart
ford, near Utic*, where she has since resi
ded. Mrs. Eames was for several years a
contributor to Mr. Greeley's New Yorker,
and she now writes frequently for The Tri
bune ; but many of her more carefully fin
ished poems have appeared in Graham's
Magazine and the Southern Literary Mes
senger. She writes with feeling ; but she re
gards poetry as an art, and to the cultivation
of it she brings her best powers. While
thoughtful and earnest, therefore, her pieces
are for the most part distinguished for a
tasteful elegance.
CROWNING OF PETRARCH.
ARRAYED in a monarch's royal robes,
With go'd and purple gleaming,
And the broidered banners of the proud
Colonna o'er him streaming —
With the gorgeous pomp and pageantry
Of the Anjouite's court attended,
He came, that princely son of song :
And the haughtiest nobles rendered
Adoring homage to the laureate bard, [starred.
Whose sky was luminous — with fame and glory
And following his triumphal car,
Rome's youthful sons came singing
His passion kindled melodies,
With the silver clarion ringing
A prouder music — harp, and lute,
And lyre, all sweet sounds blending —
And the orient sun-god on his way
In dazz'ing lustre bending :
And radiant flowers their gem-like splendor shed
O'er the proud march that to the Eternal City led!
In all its ancient grandeur was
That sceptred city drest,
And pealing notes and plaudits rang
For him its sovereign guest :
The voice of the Seven Hills went up
From kingly hall and bower,
And throngs with laurel boughs poured forth
To grace that triumph hour;
While censers wafted rich perfume around,
And the glowing air with mirth and melody was
crowned !
On, onward to the Capitol,
Italia's children crowded —
Over three hundred triumphs there
The sun had sat unclouded :
T'or crowned kings and couqucrors haught'
Had irod that path to glory,
And poets won bright wreaths and names
To live in song and story '
Hut ne'er before, king, bard, 01 victor came,
Winning such honors for his name and poet-fame.
The glittering gates are passed, and he
Hath gained the imperial summit,
And deep rich strains of harmony
Are proudly floating from it :
Incense — sunshine — and the swelling
Shout of a nation's heart beneath him,
Go up to his glorious place of pride,
While the kingly Orsos wreathe him!
Well may the bard's enraptured heart beat high,
Filled with the exulting thought of his gift's bright
victory.
Crowned one of Rome ! from that lofty height
Thou wear'*t a conqueror's seeming —
Thy dark, deep eye with the radiance
Of inspiration beaming ;
Thou'st won the living wreath for which
.Thy young ambition panted ;
Thy aspiring dream is realized :
Hast thou one wish ungranted ?
Kings bow to the might of thy genius-gifted mind :
Hast thou one unattained hope, in the'deep heart
enshrined ?
Oh, wreathed lord of the lyre of song !
Even then thy heart was haunted
With one wild and passionate wish to lay
That crown, a gift enchanted,
Low at her feet, whose smile was more
Than glory, fame, or power —
For whose dear sake was won. and worn,
The glittering laurel flower !
Oh, little worth thy bright renown to thee,
Unshared by her, the star of thy idolatry !
Thanks to thy lyre ! she liveth yet.
Oh poet, in thy numbers —
The peerless star of Avignon,
Who shone o'er all thy slumbers :
Entire and sole idolatry
At Laura's shrine was given,
Yet was her life-lot severed far
From thine as earth and heaven !
And thou,the crowned of Rome — gifted and great—
Stood in thy glory still alone and desolate '
246
ELIZABETH J. EAMES
THE DEATH OF PAN.
FROM the Ionian sea a voice came sighing —
A voice of mournful sweetness and strange power,
Borne on the scented breeze when day was dying,
Through fair Arcadie's sylvan groves and bowers,
Along her thousand sunny colored rills —
Her fairy peopled vales and haunted fountains —
Along her glens, and grots, and antique hills,
And o'er her vine-hung, purp'e tinted mountains,
Was heard that piercing, haunting voice,which said,
The God of Song, the once great Pan. is dead !
The old Sileni in their sparry caves — [cesses —
The fauns and wood nymphs in their green re-
The lovely naiads by the whispering waves —
The oriads, through all their mountain passes,
Wept when that voice thrilled on the silent air :
The stately shepherd, and the soft eyed maiden,
Who dwelt in Arcadie — the famed and fair
Wept — for that moaning voice, with sorrow laden,
Told that the sylvan king, with his gay court,
Would join no more their song and greenwood sport.
Died he in Thessaly, that land enchanted ]
In Tempi's ever rich, romantic vale 1
By c'ear Peneus, whose classic tide is haunted 1
Or did Olympus listen to the wail
Of all his satyrs 1 Died he where
His infancy to Sinoe's care was given,
When first his flute-tones melted on the air,
And filled with music Grecia's glorious heaven '.'
Where many a wild and long remembered strain
He poured for shepherdess and rustic swain ]
Ah yes ! he died in Arcadie, and never
Unto his favorite haunts did mirth return :
The voice of song was hushed by wood and river,
Long did his children for his presence yearn —
But never more by old Alpheus' shore
Was heard the^song-voice of the god of gladness :
His tuneful reed its numbers poured no more
Where Dian and her oriads roved in sadness ;
The soul of love and melody had fled
Far from Arcadie — the great Pan was dead !
CLEOPATRA.
E. \CIIANTU ESS queen ! whose empire of the heart
With sovereign sway o'er sea and land extended,
Whose peerless, haunting charms, and siren art,
Won from the imperial Caesar conquests splendid :
Rome sent her thousands forth, and foreign powers
Poured in thy woman's hand an empire's treasures.
Was Fate beside thee in those gorgeous hours
When monarchs knelt, slaves to thy merest pleas-
When but a gesture of thy royal hand [ures 1
Was to the proud triumvirs a command.
Oh, bright Egyptian queen ! thy day is past
With the young Caesar — lo ! the spell is broken
That thy all radiant beauty o'er him cast ;
Kis eye is cold — wo for thy grief unspoken !
Yet thy proud features wear a mask, which tells
How true thou art to thy commanding nat ire :
Once more, in all thy wild, bewildering spells, [ture ;
Thou standest robed and crowned, imperial crea-
Thy royal barge is on the sunny sea —
Oh, sceptred queen ! goest thou victoriously ?
But hark ! a trumpet's thrilling call to arms
O'er the soft sounds of lute and lyre ringeth !
Doubt not thy matchless sovereignty of charms,
But haste — the victor of Philippi bringeth
His shielded warriors and lords renowned ; [theo,
With spear and prince'y crest they come to meet
Arrayed for triumph, and witli laurels crowned :
How will their stern and haughty leader treat thee 1
He comes to conquer — lo ! on bended knee
The spell-bound Roman pleads, and yields to thee '.
Once more the world is thine : exultingly
Thy beautiful and stately head is lifted.
He lives but in thv srni e — proud Antony,
The crowned of empire — he, the grand'y gifted.
The spoi's of nations at thy feet are laid —
The wealth of kingdoms for thy favor scattered :
O!i, siren of the Nile ! thy love has made
The royal Roman's ruin ! crowns were shattered
And kingdoms lost : fame, honor, glory, power,
Were playthings given to grace thy triumph-hot"1
Another change ! the last for thee, doomed queen,
Now calmly on thine ivory couch reclining —
The impassioned glow hath left thy marble mien,
And from thy night-black eyeshath past the shining.
But still a queen ! that brow, so icy cold,
Its diadem of starry jewels beareth :
Robed in the royal purple, and the gold,
No conqueror's chain that form imperial beareth.
To grace Death's triumph was but left for thee,
Daughter of Afric, by the asp set free !
MY MOTHER.
Mr mother ! oft as thy dear name I mention,
Or trace thine image in my musing dream,
How strain my heart nerves to their fullest tension ;
How swells and bounds, like an imprisoned stream,
My restless spirit to go forth to thee,
Whose dear, dear face, I in each nightly vision see.
Dear mother, of the thousand strings which waker
The s'eeping harp within the human heart,
The longest kept in tune, though oft forsaken,
Is that in which the mother's voice bears part:
Her still, small voice, which e'en the careless ear
Turneth with deep reverence and pure delight to
hear
But once, kind mother, might this aching forehead
Feel the soft pressure of thy gentle hand— -
Could this poor heart, that so hath pined and sor
rowed,
Yet once more feel its pulse of hope expand
At thy dear presence — oh, mother, might this be,
I could die blessing God, for one last look at thee !
For one last word — alas ! that I should ever
E'en carelessly have caused thy heart a pain I
How oft, amid my late life's " fitful fever,"
Thy many acts of kindness rise again-
Unheeded then, but well remembered now .
Oh for thy blessing said once more above my brow {
248
ELIZABETH J. EAMES.
Fond wish, hut vain ! and I am weak to smother
The human yearnings that my bosom fill ;
Thou canst hut hope and pray, dear distant mother,
That the All-pitying may aid me still —
Aid thy frail chi'd to lift, in lowly trust,
The burden of her heart above this trembling dust.
And pray that as the shadowy hour draws nearer,
God may irradiate and purify
My spirit's inmost vision, to see clearer
Through Death's dim veil the pathway to the sky !
Mother beloved ! oh let this comfort thee,
That in yon blissful heaven shall no more part
ings be.
SONNETS.
I. MILTON".
LKAHXED and illustrious of all poets thou,
Whose Titan intellect sublimely bore
The weight of years unbent — thou, on whose brow
Flourished the blossom of all human lore :
How dost thou take us back, as 'twere bv vision,
To the grave learning of the Sanhedrim ;
And we behold in visitings Elysian,
Where waved the white wings of the cherubim ;
But, through thy "Paradise Lost," and " Regained,"
We might, enchanted, wander evermore.
Of all the genius-gifted thou hast reigned
King of our hearts; and till upon the shore
Of the Eternal dies the voice of Time, [sublime.
Thy name shal 1 mightiest stand — pure, brilliant, and
II. T)RYI)EX.
NOT dearer to the scholar's eye than mine,
(Albeit unlearned in ancient classic lore,)
The daintie poesie of days of yore —
The choice o'd English rhyme — and over thine,
Oh, "glorious John," delightedly I pore :
Keen, vigorous, chaste, and full of harmony,
Deep in the soil of our humanity
It taketh root, until the goodly tree
Of poesy puts forth green branch and bough, [gloom
With bud and blossom sweet. Through the rich
Of one embowered haunt I sec thee now, [bloom.
Where 'neath thy hand the " Flower and Leaflet"
That hand to dust hath mouldered long ago,
Yet its creations with immortal life still glow.
III. ADDISOY.
THOU, too, art worthy of all praise, whose pen,
" In thoughts that breathe, and words that burn,"
did sued
A noontide glory over Milton's head
He, " prince of poets" — thou, the prince of men :
Blessings on theu, and on the honored dead !
How dost thou charm for us the touching story
Of the lost children in the gloomy wood
Haunting dim memory with the early glory
That in youth's golden years our hearts imbued.
From the fine world of olden poetry,
Lifelike and fresh, thou bringest forth again
The gallant heroes of an earlier reign,
And blend them in our minds with thoughts of thee,
Whose name is ever shrined in old-world memory.
IV. TASSO.
A HOVE thy golden verse I bent me late,
And read of bright Sophronia's lover young —
Of fair Erminia's flight — Clorinda's fate :
While over Godfrey's deeds enwrapt I hung —
And Tancred's, told in soft Italia's tongue !
Thou who didst tune thy harp for Salem's shrine —
Thou the renowned and gifted among men —
Tasso, superior with the sword and pen :
Oh, poet-heir ! vain was the dower divine
To still the unrest of thy human heart !
Lonely and cold did Glory's star-beam shine
For him who saw a lovelier light depart !
Oh, master of the lyre ! did not thy touch [much.
Tell how the heart may break,that Love has troubled
V. TO THE AUTHORESS OF THE S1XLESS CHILD.
OFT as I bend o'er thy sweet " sinless child,"
I pause to think of thee, oh, ladye fair !
And fancy conjures up a vision rare
Of grace ethereal and beauty mild :
I picture thee with soft and glearny hair,
Down shape'.y shoulders floating goldenly —
WTith Eva's eye, and brow, and spiritual air,
And purest lip — 'tis thus I picture thee.
I know not if this shadowy ideal
Do justice to the animated real.
I ne'er have looked upon thy form of face,
Albeit they tell me thou art passing fair ;
I know but of the Intellectual there,
And shape from thence all loveliness and grace.
VI. TO THE AUTHORESS OF THE SIXLESS CHILD.
(CONTINUED.)
LADY ! less easy were it now to tell
How the soft radiance of thy dove-like eyes
Won me to love thee, by its mingled sprll
Of tenderness and graceful majesty —
And how thy voice, the "ever soft and low,"
Like music strains returns to haunt me now.
Thine, too, is the far higher charm, which hath
Its pure source in the spirit depth bel.vv:
For thou hast dallied in no idle path,
But, in the free aspiring of thy soul,
Hast gloriously disproved the common faith,
That man alone may reach the mental goal.
Oh, lady dear ! still on thine honored head [shed.
Blessings of heaven and earth a thousand fold be
VI I. THE PAST.
IY her strange, shadowy coronet she weareth
The faded jewels of an earlier time ;
An ancient sceptre in her hand she beareth —
The purple of her robe is past its prime.
Through her thin silvery locks still dimly shineth
The (lower wreath woven by pale Mem'ry's fingers
Her heart is withered — yet it strangely shrineth
In its lone urn a light that fitful lingers.
With her low, muffled voice of mystery, [pages;
She reads old legends from Time's mouldering
She telleth the present the recorded history
And change perpetual of bygone ages :
Her pilgrim feet still seek the haunted sod [trod.
Once ours,butnowby naught but memory's footsteps
ELIZABETH J. EAMES.
249
VIII. DIEM PERDIDI.
When the Emperor Titus remembered, at night, that he had done no
thing beneficial during theday.he used to exclaim, ' 1 have lost a day 1'
O GHEATLY wise ! thou of the crown and rod,
Robed in the purple majesty of kings —
Power was thine own where'er thy footsteps trod,
Yet didst thou mourn if Time on idle wings
Went by for thee ! Deep sunk in thought wert
And sadness rested on thy noble brow, [thou —
If, when the dying day closed o'er thy head,
Thou hadst no knowledge gained, no good con
ferred :
« Diem Perdidi" was the thought that stirred
Thy conscious soul, when night her curtain spread.
Oh emperor, greatly wise ! could we so deal
With misspent hours, and win thy faith sublime,
We should not be (mid the soul's mute appeal)
Such triflers with the solemn trust of Time !
IX., X. BOOKS.
" Of making many books there is no end ; and much study is a weari
ness of the flesh." — Solomon.
" OF making many books there is no end,"
Said the wise monarch of the olden time ;
Yet, through all ages and in every clime
Doth the pale seeker o'er his studies bend,
The intellectual Numen to obey,
Eager and anxious still : still doth he toil
(Making the night familiar as the day)
To find the clew to loose the ravelled coil —
To pierce the depth of things that hidden lie
The oil of life consumeth : this he knoweth,
Yet, with a feverish brow and streaming eye,
He seeks to find — and patiently bestoweth
His midnight laborings in Wisdom's mine, [shine.
To win for earth the gems that midst its darkness
" Much study is a weariness.'' The sage
Who gave his mind, to seek and search until
He knew all wisdom, found that on the page
Knowledge and GrieTwere vow'd companions still.
And so the students of a later day
Sit down among the records of old Time
To hold high commune with the thoughts sublime
Of minds long gone ; so they too pass away,
And leave us what? their course, to toil, reflect,
To feel the thorn pierce through ourgathered flowers,
Still midst the leaves the earth-worm to detect.
And this is knowledge : wisdom is not ours.
Oh ! well the Preacher bids his son admonished be,
That all the days of man's short life are vanity !
THE PICTURE OF A DEPARTED POETESS.
THIS still, clear, radiant face ! doth it resemble
In each fair, faultless lineament thine own 1
Methinks on that enchanting lip doth tremble
The soul that breathes thy lyre's melodious tone.
The soul of music, oh ! ethereal spirit,
Fills the dream-haunted sadness of thine eyes ;
Sweet poetess ! thou surely didst inherit
Thy gifts celestial from the upper skies.
Clear on the expansion of that snow-white forehead
Sits intellectual beauty, meekly throned;
Yet oh, the expression tells that thou hast sorrowed,
And in thy yearning, human heart, atoned
For thy soul's lofty gifts ! — on earth, oh never
Was the deep thirsting of thy bosom stilled !
The " aching void" followed thce here for ever —
The better land thy dream of love fulfilled.
CHARITY.
ALL stainless in the holy white
Of her broad mantle, lo ! the maiden cometh
Lip, cheek, and brow, serenely bright,
With that calm look of deep delight.
Beautiful ! on the mountain-top she roameth.
" The soft gray of the brooding dove"
With melting radiance in her eye she weareth ,
Her heart is full of trust and love- -
For an angel mission from above,
In tranquil beauty, o'er the earth she beareth.
The music of humanity
Flows from her tuneful lips in sweetest numbers;
Of all life's pleasant ministries —
Of universal harmonies —
She sings : no care her mind encumbers.
Glad tidings doth she ever sound —
Good will to man throughout the world is sending;
Blessings and gifts she scatters round :
Peace to her name, with whom is found
The olive branch, in holy beauty bending.
FLOWERS IN A SfCK ROOM.
YE are welcome to my darkened room,
0 meek and lonely wildwood flowers !
Ye are welcome, as light amid the gloom
That hangs upon rny weary hours.
Here by my lowly couch of languishment and sorrow
Your station take, that I may from your presence bor-
Lessons of hope, and lowly trust, [row
That He whose touch revived youi bloom
Hath the same power o'er this poor dust,
To raise it from the shadowy tomb !
Thanks for your presence ! for ye bring
Back to the aching heart and eye
Bright visions of the festal Spring,
Its blossoms, birds, and azure sky. [tranged,
Now, far from each green haunt and sunny nook es-
Fading and faint, I lie ; yet in my heart unchanged
Glows the same love for you, fair flowers,
As when my unchained footsteps trod
Lightly amidst your forest bowers,
And plucked ye from the dewy sod !
And THOU, who gavest these grateful flowers,
1 bless thee for thy thought of me !
And that through long and painful hours
My vigils have been shared by thee. [faltered,
I bless thee for the kindness and care which ne'er have
For the noble, loving heart that through ill remains
A little while, companion dear, [unaltered !
And e'en thy watchful care shall cease :
Oh, grieve not when the hour draws near.
But thank Heaven that it brlngeth peace !
EMELINE S. SMITH.
(Born 1X23).
Miss EMELINE SHERMAN, now MRS. SMITH,
was born in New Baltimore, Greene county,
New York, and in 1836 was married to Mr.
James M. Smith, of the New York bar. Mrs.
Smith has been a contributor to several of
the leading literary journals, and in 1847
she published a volume entitled The Fairy's
Search, and other Poems, in which she has
evinced considerable fancy, and a poetical
vein of sentiment. Her distinguishing char
acteristics are a religious delight in nature,
and a contentment with home affec;ions and
pleasures, which in one form or another aro
the materiel of the finest poetry of women
HYMN TO THE DEITY,
IN THE CONTEMPLATION OF NATURE.
TII or Giver of all earthly good —
Thou wonder-working Power,
Whose spirit smiles in every star,
And breathes in every flower :
How gratefully we speak thy name —
How gladly own thy sway !
How thrillingly thy presence feel,
When mid thy works we stray !
We may forget thee for a time,
In scenes with tumult rife,
Where worldly cares or pleasures claim
Too large a share of life ;
But not in Nature's sweet domain,
Where everything we see,
From loftiest mount to lowliest flower,
Is eloquent of thee.
Where waves lift up their tuneful voice,
And solemn anthems chime ;
Where winds through echoing forests peal
Their melodies sublime;
Where e'en insensate objects breathe
Devotion's grateful lays —
Man can not choose but join the choir
That hymns his Maker's praise.
Beneath the city's gilded domes,
In temples decked with care,
Where Art and Splendor vie to make
Thine earthly mansions fair,
Our forms mav lowly bend, our lips
May breathe a formal lay,
The whilst our wayward hearts refuse
These holy rites to pay.
But in that grander temple, reared
By thine Almighty band,
Where glorious beauty bids the mind's
Diviner powers expand,
~)ur thoughts, like grateful vassals, give
An homage glad and free ;
Our souls in adoration bow,
And mutely reverence Thee.
WE'VE HAD OUR SHARE OF BLISS
BELOVED.
WK 'VK had our share of bliss, beloved,
We 've had our share of bliss ;
And mid the varying scenes of life,
Let us remember this.
If sorrows come, from vanished joy
We'll borrow such a light
As the departed sun bestows
Upon the queen of night :
And thus, by Memory's moonbeams cheered,
Hope's sun we shall not miss,
But tread life's path as gay as when
We had our share of bliss.
'Tis true our sky hath had its clouds,
Our spring its stormy hours —
When we have mourned, as all must mourn,
O'er blighted buds and flowers ;
And true, our bark hath sometimes neared
Despair's most desert shore,
When gloomy looked the waves around,
And dark the land before :
But Love was ever at the helm —
He could not go amiss,
So Ion 2; as two fond spirits sang,
" We 've had our share of bliss."
These holy watchwords of the Past
Shall be the Future's stay —
For by their magic aid we '11 keep
A host of i.ls at bay.
Our happv hearts, like tireless bees,
Have revelled mid the. flowers,
And hived a store of summer sweets
To cheer life's wintry hours :
While Memory lives, and Love remains,
We'll ask no more than this — -
But ever sing, in grateful strains,
" We 've had our share of bliss."
2.10
MAEGAEET FULLEE, MAECHIONESS D'OSSOLL
(Born 1810-Died 1850).
THE MARCHIONESS D'OSSOLT is known as a
prose writer. Her Woman in the Nineteenth
Century, Papers on Literature and Art, Sum
mer on the Lakes, etc., entitle her undoubt
edly to be ranked among the first authors of
her sex. I have recently re-read these works,
incited to do so by the apparent candor and
decided sagacity displayed in the Letters she
has written to The Tribune during her resi
dence in Europe ; and I confess some change
of opinion in her favor since writing the
article upon her in The Prose Writers of
America. Few can boast so wide a range
of liierary culture ; perhaps none Avrite so
well with as much facility ; and there is
marked individuality in all her productions.
As a poet, we have few illustrations of her
abilities ; but what we have are equal to her
reputation. She is said to have written much
more poetry than she has published.
GOVERNOR EVERETT RECEIVING THE
INDIAN CHIEFS, NOVEMBER, 1837.
WHO says that poesy is on the wane,
And that the Muses tune their lyres in vain 7
Mid all the treasures of romantic story,
When thought was fresh and fancy in her glory,
Has ever Art found out a richer theme,
More dark a shadow, or mo-re soft a gleam,
Than fall upon the scene, sketched carelessly,
In the newspaper column of to-day 1
American romance is somewhat stale.
Talk of the hatchet, and the faces pale,
Wampum and calumets, and forests dreary,
Once so attractive, now begins to weary.
Uncas and Magawisca please us still —
Unreal, yet idealized with skill ;
But every poetaster, scribbling witling,
From the majestic oak his stylus whittling,
Has helped to tire us, and to make us fear
The monotone in which so much we hear
Of " stoics of the wood," and " men without a tear."
Yet Nature, ever buoyant, ever young,
If let alone, will sing as erst she sung :
The course of circumstance gives back again
The picturesque, erewhile pursued in vain —
Shows us the fount of romance is not wasted,
The lights and shades of contrast not exhausted.
Shorn of his strength, the Samson now must sue
For fragments from the feast his fathers gave ;
The Indian dare not claim what is his due, .
But as a boon his heritage must crave :
His stately form shall soon be seen no more
Through all his father's land, th' Atlantic shore;
Beneath the sun, to us so kind, they melt —
More heavily each day our rule is felt :
The tale is old — we do as mortals must ;
Might makes right here, but God and Time are just.
So near the drama hastens to its close,
On this last scene awhi'e your eyes repose:
The polished Greek and Scythian meet again,
The ancient life is lived by modern men —
The savage through our busy cities walks —
He in his untouched grandeur silent stalks !
Unmoved by all our gayeties and shows,
Wonder nor shame can touch him as he goes:
He gazes on the marvels we have wrought,
But knows the models from whence all was brought •
In God's first temples he has stood so oft,
And listened to the natural organ loft — [heard,
Has watched the eagle's fhght,the muttering thunder
Art can not move him to a wondering word:
Perhaps he sees that all this luxury
Brings less food to the mind than to the eye ;
Perhaps a simple sentiment has brought
More to him than your arts had ever taught.
What are the petty triumphs Art has given,
To eyes familiar with the naked heaven ?
All has been seen— dock, railroad, and canal,
Fort, market, bridge, college, and arsenal,
Asylum, hospital, and cotton-mill.
The theatre, the lighthouse, and the jail.
The Braves each novelty, reflecting, saw,
And now and then growled out the earnest yaw ;
And now the time is come, 'tis understood,
When, having seen and thought so much, a talk
may do some good.
Awelldressed mobhavethrongedthesiijht togreet,
And motley figures throng the spacious street;
Majestical and calm through a!l they stride,
Wearing the blanket with a monarch's pride ;
The gazers stare and shrug, but can't deny
Their noble forms and blameless symmetry
If the Great Spirit their morale has slighted.
And wigwam smoke their mental culture blighted,
Yet the physique, at least, perfection reaches,
In wilds where neither Combe nor Spurzheim
teaches —
Where whispering trees invite man to the chase,
And bounding deer allure him to the race.
Would thou hadst seen it ! That dark, stately
Whose ancestors enjoyed all this fair land, [band,
Whence they, by force or fraud, were made to flee,
Are brought, the whiN* man's victory to «ee
251
252
MARGARET FULLER, MARCHIONESS D'OSSOLI.
Can kind emotions in their proud hearts glow,
As through these realms, now decked by art, the}7 go?
The church, the school, the railroad, and the mart —
Can these a pleasure to their minds impart 1
All once, was theirs — earth, ocean, forest, sky —
How can they joy in what now meets the eye ]
Not yet Re'igion has unlocked the soul,
Nor each has learned to glory in the whole !
Must they not think, so strange and sad their lot,
That they by the Great Spirit are forgot ]
From the far border to which they are driven,
They might look up in trust to the clear heaven ;
But here — what tales doth every object tell
Where Massasoit sleeps — where Philip fell !
We take our turn, and the philosopher
Sees through the clouds a hand which can not err,
An unimproving race, with all their graces
And all their vices, must resign their places;
And human culture rolls its onward flood
Over the broad plains steeped in Indian blood.
Such thoughts steady our faith — yet there will rise
Some natural tears into the calmest eyes —
Which gaze where forest princes haughty go,
Made for a gaping crowd a raree show.
But this a scene seems where, in courtesy,
The pale face with the forest prince could vie,
For One presided who, for tact and grace,
In any age had held an honored place —
In Beauty's own dear day, had shone a polished
Phidian vase !
Oft have I listened to his accents bland,
And owned the magic of his silvery voice,
In all the graces which life's arts demand,
Delighted by the justness of his choice.
Not his the stream of lavish, fervid thought —
The rhetoric by passion's magic wrought;
Not his the massive style, the lion port,
Which with the granite class of mind assort;
But, in a range of excellence his own,
With all the charms to soft persuasion known,
Amid our busy people we admire him — "elegant
and lone."
He scarce needs words, so exquisite the skill
Which modulates the tones to do his will,
That the mere sound enough would charm the ear,
And lap in its Eiysium all who hear.
The intellectual paleness of his cheek,
The heavy eyelids, and slow, tranquil smile,
The well cut lips from which the graces speak,
Fit him alike to win or to beguile ;
Then those words so well chosen, fit, though few,
Their linked sweetness as our thoughts pursue,
We deem them spoken pearls, or radiant diamond
dew.
And never yet did I admire the power
Winch makes so lustrous every threadbare theme —
Which won for Lafayette one other hour,
And e'en on July fourth could cast a gleam —
As now, when I beho'.d him play the host
Writh all the dignity which red men boast —
With all the courtesy the whites have lost :
Assume the very hue of savage mind,
Yet in rude accents show the thought refined
Assume the naivete of infant age,
A nd in such prattle seem still more a sage ,
The golden mean with tact unerring seized,
A courtly critic shone, a simple savage pleased;
The stoic of the woods his skill confessed,
As all the Father answered in his breast,
To the sure mark the silver arrow sped,
The man without a tear a tear has shed :
And thou hadst wept, had thou been there, to see
How true one sentiment must ever be,
In court or camp, the city or the wild, [child.
To rouse the father's heart, you need but name his
'T was a fair scene — and acted well by all :
So here's a health to Indian braves so tall —
Our governor and Boston people all !
THE SACRED MARRIAGE.
AXD has another's life as large a scope 1
It may give due fulfilment to thy hope,
And every portal to the unknown may ope.
If, near this other life, thy inmost feeling
Trembles with fateful prescience of revealing
The future Deity, time is still concealing :
If thou feel thy whole force drawn more and more
To launch that other bark on seas without a shore,
And no still secret must be kept in store —
If meannesses that dim each temporal deed,
The dull decay that mars the fleshly weed, [seed—
And flower of love that seems to fall and leave no
Hide never the full presence from thy sight
Of mutnal aims and tasks, ideals bright, [blight.
Which feed their roots to-day on all this seeming
Twin stars that mutual circle in the heaven,
Two parts for spiritual concord given
Twin sabbaths that inlock the sacred seven-
Still looking to the centre for the cause,
Mutual light giving to draw out the powers,
And learning all the other groups by cognizance of
one another's laws :
The parent love the wedded love includes,
The one permits the two their mutual moods,
The two each other know mid myriad multitudes;
With childlike intellect discerning love,
And mutual action energizing love,
In myriad forms affiliating love.
A world whose seasons bloom from pole to pole,
A force which knows both starting-point and goal.
A home in heaven — the union in the soul.
SONNETS.
I. ORPHEUS.
EACH Orpheus must to the depths descend,
For only thus the poet can be wise,
Must make the sad Persephone his friend,
And buried love to second life arise ;
Again his love must lose through too much love
Must lose his life by living life too true,
For what he sought below is passed above,
Already done is all that he would do;
Must tune all being with his single lyre,
Must melt all rocks free from their primal pain,
Must search all Nature with his one soul's fire,
Must bind anew all forms in heavenly chain.
If he already sees what he must do,
"N Veil may he shade his eyes from the far-shining view
MARGARET FULLER, MARCHIONESS D'OSSOLI.
253
TI. INSTRUMENTAL MUSIC.
THK charms of melody, in simple airs,
By human voices sung, are always felt;
With thoughts responsive careless hearers melt,
Of secret ills, which our frail nature bears.
We listen, weep, forget. But when the throng
Of a great master's thoughts, above the reach
Of words or colors, wire and wood can teach
By laws which to the spirit-world belong — •
When several parts, to te I one mood combined,
Flash meaning on us we can ne'er express,
Giving to matter subtlest powers of mind,
Superior joys attentive souls confess:
The harmony which suns and stars obey, [day.
Blesses our earthbound state with visions of supernal
III. BEETHOVEX.
MOST intellectual master of the art,
Which, best of all, teaches the mind of man
The universe in all its varied plan —
What strangely mingled thoughts thy strains impart!
Here the faint tenor thrills the inmost heart,
There the rich bass the Reason's balance shows ;
Here breathes the softest sigh that Love e'er knows;
There sudden fancies, seeming without chart,
Float into widest breezy interludes;
The ; ast is all forgot — hopes sweetly breathe,
And our whole being glows — when lo ! beneath
The flowery brink, Despair's deep sob concludes !
Startled, we strive to free us from the chain —
Notes of high triumph swell, and we are thine again !
IV. MOZART.
IF to the intellect and passions strong
Beethoven speak, with such resistless power,
Making us share the full creative hour,
When his wand fixed wild Fancy's mystic throng,
Oh, Nature's finest lyre ! to thee belong
The deepest, softest tones of tenderness,
Whose purity the listening angels bless,
With silvery clearness of seraphic song.
Sad are those chords, oh heavenward striving soul !
A love, which never found its home on earth,
Pensively vibrates, even in thy mirth,
And gentle laws thy lightest notes control ;
Yet dear that sadness ! spheral concords felt
Purify most those hearts which most they melt.
v. TO ALLSTON'S PICTURE, "THE BRIDE."
NOT long enough we gaze upon that face,
Not pure enough the life with which we live,
To be full tranced by that softest grace,
To win all pearls those lucid depths can give ;
Here Fantasy has borrowed wings of Even,
And stolen Twilight's latest, sacred hues,
A soul has visited the woman's heaven,
Where palest lights a silver sheen diffuse.
To see aright the vision which he saw,
We must ascend as high upon the stair
Which leads the human thought to heavenly law,
And see the flower bloom in its natal air ;
Thus might we read aright the lip and brow,
Where Thought and Love beam too su! Juing for
our senses now.
TO EDITH, ON HER BIRTHDAY.
IF the same star our fates together bind,
W^hy are we thus divided, mind from mind 1
If the same law one grief to both impart,
How couldst thou grieve a trusting mother's heart 1
Our aspiration seeks a common aim,
Why were we tempered of such differing fratii0 ?
— But 'tis too late to turn this wrong to right;
Too cold, too damp, too deep, has fallen the night !
And yet, the angel of my life replies —
" Upon that night a Morning Star shall rise,
Fairer than *hat which ruled the temporal birth,
Undimmed by vapors of the dreamy earth."
It says, that, where a heart thy claim denies,
Genius shall read its secret ere it flies;
The earthly form may vanish from thy side,
Pure love will make thee still the Spirit's bride.
And thou, ungentle, yet much-loving child,
Whose heart still shows the ' untamed haggard wild,'
A heart which justly makes the highest claim,
Too easily is checked by transient blame;
Ere such an orb can ascertain its sphere,
The ordeal must be various and severe ;
My prayers attend thee, though the feet may fly,
I hear thy music in the silent sky.
LINES WRITTEN" IN ILLINOIS.
FAMILIAR to the chi'dish mind were tales
Of rock-girt isles amid a desert sea,
Where unexpected stretch the flowery vales
To soothe the shipwrecked sailor's misery.
Fainting, he lay upon a sandy shore,
And fancied that all hope of life was o'er ;
But let him patient climb the frowning wall,
Within, the orange glows beneath the palm tree tall,
And all that Eden boasted waits his call.
Almost these tales seem rea'ized to-day,
When the long dullness of the sultry way,
Where independent settlers' careless cheer
Made us indeed feel we were strangers here,
Is cheered by sudden sight of this fair spot,
On which improvement yet has made no blot,
But Nature all astonished stands, to find
Her plan protected by the human mind.
Blest be the kindly genius of the scene :
The river, bending in unbroken grace,
The stately thickets, with their pathways green,
Fair lonely trees, each in its fittest place.
Those thickets haunted by the deer and fawn ;
Those cloudlike flights of birds across the lawn;
The gentlest breezes here delight to blow, [the show.
And sun and shower and star are emulous to deck
Wondering, as Crusoe, we survey the land —
Happier than Crusoe we, a friendly band :
Blest be the hand that reared this friendly homt.,
The heart and mind of him to whom we owe
Hours of pure peace such as few mortals know,
May he find such, should he be led to roam—
Be tended by such ministering sprites —
Enjoy such gayly childish days, such hopeful nights
And yet, amid the goods to mortals given,
To give those goods again is most like Heaven
254
MARGARET FULLER, MARCHIONESS D'OSSOLI.
ON LEAVING THE WEST.
t.r,, ye soft and sumptuous solitudes !
Ye fairy distances, ye lordly woods,
Haunted by paths like those that Poussin knew,
When after his all gazers eyes he drew:
I go — and if I never more may steep
An eager heart in your enchantments deep,
Yet ever to itself that heart may say,
Be not exacting — thou hast lived one day —
Hast looked on that which matches with thy mood,
Impassioned sweetness of full being's flood,
Where nothing checked the bold yet gentle wave,
Where naught repelled the lavish love that gave.
A tender blessing lingers o'er the scene,
Like some young mother's thought, fond, yet serene,
And through its life new born our lives have been.
Once more farewell — a sad, a sweet farewell;
And if I never must behold you more,
In other worlds I will not cease to tell
The rosary I here have numbered o'er;
And bright-haired Hope will lend a gladdened ear,
And Love will free him from the grasp of Fear,
And Gorgon critics, while the tale they hear,
Shall dew their stony glances with a tear,
If I but catch one echo from your spell :
And so farewell — a grateful, sad farewell !
GANYMEDE TO HIS EAGLE*
SUGGESTED BY A WORK OF THORWAI.DSEN'S.
UPON- the rocky mountain stood the boy,
A goblet of pure water in his hand,
His face and form spoke him one made for joy,
A willing servant to sweet love's command ;
But a strange pain was written on his brow,
And thrilled throughout his silver accents now:
" My bird." he cries, " my destined brother friend,
Oh whither fleets to-day thy wayward flight ]
Hast thou forgotten that I here attend,
From the full noon until this sad twilight 1
A hundred times, at least, from the clear spring,
Since the full noon o'er hill and valley glowed,
I've filled the vase which our Olympian king
Upon my care for thy sole use bestowed ;
That, at the moment when thou shouldst descend,
A pure refreshment might thy thirst attend.
Hast th->u forgotten earth — forgotten me,
Thy fellow bondsman in a royal cause,
Who, from the sadness of infinity,
Only with thee can know that peaceful pause
In which we catch the flowing strain of love
Which binds our dim fates to the throne of Jove 1
Before I saw thee I was like the May,
Longing for summer that must mar its bloom,
Or like the morning star that calls the day,
Whose glories to its promise are the tomb;
And as the eager fountain rises higher,
To throw itself more strongly back to earth,
Still, as more sweet and full rose my desire,
More fondly it reverted to its birth ;
• Composed on the height called the Engle's NCR, Ore
gon. Rock River, July 4, 1813.
For, what the rosebud seeks tells not the rase —
The meaning foretold by the boy the man can not
disclose.
I was all spring, for in my being dwelt
Eternal youth, where flowers are the fruit;
Full feeling was the thought of what was fel* —
Its music was the meaning of the lute :
But heaven and earth such life will still deny,
For earth, divorced from heaven, still asks the ques
tion, Why 1
Upon the highest mountains my young feet
Ached, that no pinions from their lightness grew
My starlike eyes the stars would fondly greet,
Yet win no greeting from the circling blue ;
Fair, self-subsi.stent each in its own sphere,
They had no care that there was none for me :
Alike to them that I was far or near,
Alike to them, time and eternity.
But, from the violet of lower air,
Sometimes an answer to my wishing came,
Those lightning births my nature seemed to share,
They told the secrets of its fiery frame —
The sudden messengers of hate and love,
The thunderbolts that arm the hand of Jove,
And strike sometimes the sacred spire, and strike
the sacred grove.
Come in a moment, in a moment gone,
They answered me, then left me still more lone ;
They told me that the thought which ruled the world
As yet no sail upon its course had furled,
That the creation was but just begun,
New leaves still leaving from the primal one,
But spoke not of the goal to which my rapid wheels
would run.
Still, still my eyes, though tearfully, I strained
To the far future which my heart contained,
And no dull doubt my proper hope profaned.
At last, oh bliss, thy living form I spied,
Then a mere speck upon a distant sky ;
Yet my keen glance discerned its noble pride,
And the full answer of that sun-filled eye :
I knew it was the wing that must upbear
My earthlier form into the realms of air.
Thou knovvest how we gained that beauteous height,
Where dwells the monarch of the sons of light,
Thou knowest he declared us two to be
The chosen servants of his ministry —
Thou as his messenger, a sacred sign
Of conquest, or with omen more benign,
To give its due weight to the righteous cause,
To express the verdict of Olympian laws.
And I wait upon the lonely spring,
Which slakes the thirst of bards to whom 'tis given
The destined dues of hopes divine to sing,
And weave the needed chain to bind to heaven
Only from such could be obtained a draught
For him who in his early home from JoveV own
cup has quaffed.
To wait, to wait, but not to wait too long,
Till heavy grows the burthen of a song;
Oh bird ! too long hast thou been gone to-day,
My feet are weary of their frequent way —
The spell that opes the spring my tongue no more
MARGARET FULLER, MARCHIONESS D'OSSOLI.
255
ff soon thou com'st not, night will fall around,
My head with a sad slumber will be bound,
And the pure draught be spilt upon the ground.
Remember that I am not yet divine,
Long years of service to the fatal Nine
Are yet to make a Delphian vigor mine.
Oh, make them not too hard, thou bird of Jove,
Answer the stripling's hope, confirm his love,
Receive the service in which he delights,
And bear him often to the serene heights,
Where hands that were so prompt in serving thee,
Shall be allowed the highest ministry,
And Rapture live with bright Fide.ity.
LIFE A TEMPLE.
THE temple round
Spread green the pleasant ground ;
The fair colonnade
Be of pure marble pillars made ;
Strong to sustain the roof,
Time and tempest proof,
Yet amid which the lightest breese
Can play as it please :
The audience hall
Be free to all
Who revere
The Power worshipped here,
Sole guide of youth,
Unswerving Truth :
In the inmost shrine
Stands the image divine,
Only seen
By those whose deeds have worthy been —
Priestlike clean.
Those, who initiated are,
Declare,
As the hours
Usher in varying hopes and powers ;
It changes its face,
It changes its age —
Now a young beaming grace,
Now Nestorian sage :
But, to the pure in heart,
This shape of primal art
In age is fair,
In youth seems wise,
Beyond compare,
Above surprise :
What it teaches native seems,
Its new lore our ancient dreams ;
Incense rises from the ground,
Music flows around ;
Firm rest the feet below, clear gaze the eyes above,
When Truth to point the way through life assumes
the wand of Love ;
But. if she cast aside the robe of green,
Winter's silver sheen,
White, pure as light,
Makes gentle shroud- as worthy weed as bridal
robe had been.
ENCOURAGEMENT.
Foil the Power to whom we bow
Has given its pledge that, if not now,
They of pure and steadfast mind,
By faith exalted, truth refined,
Shall hear all music loud and clear,
Whose first notes they ventured here.
Then fear not thou to wind the horn,
Though elf and gnome thy courage scorn
Ask for the castle's king and queen —
Though rabble rout may rush between,
Beat thee senseless to the ground,
in the dark beset thee round —
Persist to ask and it will come,
Seek not for rest in humbler home :
So shalt thou see what few have seen,
The palace home of King and Queen.
GUNHILDA.
A MATHER bat beneath the tree,
Tear-bedewed her pale cheeks be
And she sigheth heavily.
From forth the wood into the light
A hunter strides with carol light,
And a glance so bold and bright.
He careless stopped and eyed the maid •
" Why weepest thou!" he gently said,
" I love thee well — be not afraid."
He takes her hand, and leads her on ;
She should have waited there alone,
For he was not her chosen one.
He leans her head upon his breast :
She knew 'twas not her home of rest,
But ah ! she had been sore distressed.
The sacred stars looked sadly down ;
The parting moon appeared to frown,
To see thus dimmed the diamond crown.
Then from the thicket starts a deer:
The huntsman, seizing on his spear,
Cries, " Maiden, wait thou for me here."
She sees him vanish into night,
She starts from sleep in deep affright,
For it was not her own true knight !
Though but in dream Gunhilda failed,
Though but a fancied ill assailed,
Though she but fancied fault bewailed —
Yet thought of day makes dream of night
She is not worthy of the knight.
The inmost altar burns not bright.
If loneliness thou canst not bear,
Can not the dragon's venom dare,
Of the pure meed thou shouldst despair.
Now sadder that lone maiden sighs,
Far bitterer tears profane her eyes,,
Crushed in the dust her heart's flower lie*.
LYDIA JANE PE1RSON.
LYKTA JANE WHEELER, now Mrs. PEIR-
SON, was born in Middletown, Connecticut,
and when sixteen years of age removed with
her pa rents to Canandaigua, New York, where
she was soon after married. Her husband
purchased a tract of land in Liberty, Tioga
county, one of the wildest districts of north
ern Pennsylvania, and commenced there his
career as a pioneer farmer, five miles from
any other habitation, and nearly twenty from
any village. Mrs. Peirson appears to have
been ill fitted for such a life, but the solitude
of the forest was cheered by the presence of
the Muse, and for several years her contri
butions appeared frequently in The New-
Yorker, The Southern Literary Messenger,
and other periodicals. A pleasing incident
in her history is related in the following com
munication from a correspondent : " At a pe
riod when the best abilities of Pennsylvania
were active in recommending plans for the
general education of the people, Mr. Thad-
deus Stevens, now a member of Congress,
but then a representative in the state legis
lature, made a masterly speech upon the sub
ject, which was seconded by a spirited and
elegant poem that attracted general atten
tion. Judge Ellis Lewis, so well known as
one of our most accomplished jurists, was
deeply interested in the movement, and ac
tively engaged in efforts to induce its suc
cess. Pleased with the poem, he made in
quiries respecting its author, and learned that
her husband, by a series of misfortunes, had
been reduced to a condition of extreme pe
cuniary embarrassment, and that his family
•was without a home. Meeting Mr. Stevens,
who is scarcely less known for his generosity
than for those splendid powers which have
raised him to so high a rank in his profes
sion and among the managers of affairs, he
communicated to him the circumstances, and
suggested that something should he done for
the relief of the poetess. Mr. Stevens au
thorized the judge to consult with Mrs. Peir
son, purchase for her such a farm as she
miijfht select, and draw on him for the cost.
Neither Judge Lewis nor Mr. Stevens had
ever seen her, but the former apprized her
of his commission, and the design was exe
cuted. She chose a beautiful little estate
which chanced to be in the market ; it was
purchased by Judge Lewis ; the deed, drawn
to Thaddeus Stevens in trust for Lydia Jane
Peirson and her heirs and assigns, was sent
to her ; and she now lives upon it in pleasant
independence."
Mrs. Peirson has published two volumes
of poems — Forest Leaves, in 1845, and The
Forest Minstrel, in 1847.
MY SONG.
'Tis not for fame
That I awaken with my simple lay
The echoes of the forest. I but sing
As sings the bird, that pours her native strain,
Because her soul is made of melody ;
And lingering in the bowers, her warblings seem
To gather round her all the tuneful forms [flowers,
Whose bright wings shook rich incense from the
And balmy verdure of the sweet young Spring,
O'er which the glad Day shed his brightest smile,
And Night her purest tears. I do but sing
Like that sad bird who in her loneliness
Pours out in song the treasures of her soul,
Wbichelse would burst herbosom,which hasnaught
On which to lavish the warm streams that gush
Up fioin her trembling heart, and pours them foi h
Up<>u the sighing winds in fitful strains.
Perchance one pensive spirit loves the song,
And lingers in the twilight near the wood
To list her plaintive sonnet, which unlocks
The sealed fountain of a hidden grief.
That pensive listener, or some playful child,
May miss the lone bird's song, what time her wings
Are folded in the calm and silent sleep,
Above her broken heart. Then, though they weep
In her deserted bower, and hang rich wreaths
Of ever-living flowers upon her grave,
What will it profit her who would have slept
As deep and sweet without them ?
Oh ! how vain
With promised garlands for the sepulchre,
To think to cheer the soul, whose daily prayer
Is but for bread and peace ! whose trembling hopes
For immortality ask one green leaf
From off the healing trees that grow beside
The pure, bright river of Eternal Life.
255
LVDIA JANE PEIRSON.
257
MY MUSE.
BORN of the sunlight and the dew,
That met amongst the flowers,
That on the river margin grew
Beneath the willow bowers ;
Her earliest pillow was a wreath
Of violets newly blown,
And the meek incense of their breath
At once became her own.
Her cradle-hymn the river sung,
In that same liquid tone
With which it gave, when Earth was young,
Praise to the Living One.
The breeze that lay upon its breast
Responded with a sigh ;
And there the ring-dove built her nest
And sung her lullaby.
The only nurse she ever knew
WTas Nature, free and wild :
Such was her birth, and so she grew
A moody, wayward child,
WTho loved to climb the rocky steep,
To ford the mountain-stream,
To lie beside the sounding deep,
And weave the magic drearn.
She loved the path with shadows dim,
Beneath the dark-leaved trees,
Where Nature's winged poets sing
Their sweetest melodies ;
To dance amongst the pensile stems
Where blossoms bright and sweet
Threw diamonds from their diadems
Upon her fairy feet.
She loved to watch the day-star float
Upon the aerial sea,
Till Morning sunk his pearly boat
In floods of radiancy ;
To see the angel of the storm
Upon his wind-winged car,
With dark clouds wrapped around his form,
Come shouting from afar ;
And pouring treasures rich and free,
The pure, refreshing rain,
Till every weed and forest-tree
Could boast its diamond chain :
Then rising, with the hymn of praise,
That swelled from hill and dale,
Display the rainbow, sign of peace,
Upon its misty veil.
She loved the waves' deep utterings —
And gazed with phrensied eye
When Night shook lightning from his wings,
And winds went sobbing by.
Full oft I chid the wayward child,
Her wanderings to restrain ;
And sought her airy limbs to bind
With Caution's worldly chain.
I bade her stay within my cot,
And plv the housewife's art:
She heard me, but she heeded not— •
Oh, who can bind the heart !
17
I told her she had none to guide
Her inexperienced feet
To where, through Tempe's valley, glide
Castalia's waters sweet ;
No son of Fame, to take her hand
And lead her blushing forth,
Proclaiming to the laurelled band
A youthful sister's worth ;
That there were none to help her climb
The steep and toilsome way,
To where, above the mists of Time,
Shines Genius' living ray ;
W7here, wreathed with never-fading flowers,
The harp immortal lies,
Filling the souls that reach those bowers
With heavenly melodies.
I warned her of the cruel foes
That throng that rugged path,
Where many a thorn of misery grows,
And tempests wreak their wrath.
I told her of the serpents dread,
With malice-pointed fangs,
Of yellow-blossomed weeds that shed
Derision's maddening pangs ;
And of the broken* mouldering lyres
Thrown carelessly aside,
Telling the winds, with shivering wires,
How noble spirits died !
I said, her sandals were not meet
Such journey to essay —
(There should be gold beneath the feet
That tempt Fame's toilsome way :)
But while I spoke, her burning eye
Was flashing in the light
That shone upon that mountain high,
Insufferably b ight.
While streaming from the Eternal Lyre,
Like distant echoes came
A strain that wrapped her soul in fire,
And thrilled her trembling frame.
She sprang away, that wayward child —
" The harp ! the harp !" she cried ;
And still she climbs and warbles wild
Along the mountain-side.
TO AN AEOLIAN HARP.
THOU Vr like my heart, thou shivering string
Of wild and plaintive tone;
Thrilled by the slightest zephyr's wing,
That over thee is thrown ;
Replying with melodious wail
To every passing sigh,
And pouring to the fitful gale
Wild bursts of harmony.
Still by the tempest's torturing power
Thy loftiest notes are rung,
And in the stormy midnight horn
Thy holiest hymns are sung.
Thou'rt like my heart, thou trembling string
That lovest the gentle breeze —
Yet yieldest to the tempest-king
Thy loftiest melodies.
258
LYDIA JANE PEIRSOA.
TO THE WOOD RORIX.
Bnu) of the twilight hour!
My soul goes forth to mingle with thy hvmn,
Which floats like slum her round each closing flower,
And weaves sweet visions through the forest dim.
Where Day's sweet warblers rest,
Each gently rocking on the waving spray,
Or hovering the dear fledglings in the nest
Without one care-pang for the coming day.
Oh, holy bird, and sweet
Angel of this dark forest, whose rich notes
Gush like a fountain in the still retreat,
O'er which a world of mirrored beauty floats :
My spirit drinks the stream,
Till human caves and passions fade away ;
And all my soul is wrapped in one sweet dream
Of blended love, and peace, and melody.
Sweet bird ! that wakest alone
The moonlight echoes of the flowery dells,
When every other winged lute is flown,
And insects sleeping all in nodding bells;
I bow my aching head,
And wait the unction of thy voice of love :
I feel it o'er my weary spirit shed,
Like dew from balmy flowers that bloom above.
Oh ! when the loves of earth
Are silent birds, at close of life's long day,
May some pure seraphim of heavenly birth
Bear on its holy hymn my soul away !
THE WILD-WOOD HOME.
On, show me a place like the wild-wood home,
Where the air is fragrant and free,
And the first pure breathings of morning come
In a gush of melody.
She lifts the soft fringe from her dark-blue eye
With a radiant smile of love,
And the diamonds that o'er her bosom lie
Are bright as the gems above ;
Whore Noon lies down in the breezy shade
Of the glorious forest bowers,
And the beautiful birds from the sunny glades
Sit nodding amongst the flowers,
WThile the holy child of the mountain-spring
Steals past with a murmured song,
And the honey-bees sleep in the bells that swing
Its garlanded banks along ;
Where Day steals away with a young bride's blush,
To the soft green couch of Night,
And the Moon throws o'er with a ho'y hush
Her curtain of gossamer light;
And the seraph that sings in the hemlock dell,
Oh, sweetest of birds is she,
Fills the dewy breeze with a trancing swell
Of melody rich and free.
Theie are sumptuous mansions with marble wails,
Surmounted by glittering towers,
When- fountains play in the perfumed halls
.Amongst exotic flowers.
They are suitable homes for the haughty in mind,
Yet a wild-wood home for me, [wind,
Where the pure bright streams, and the mountain-
And the bounding heart, are free !
ISABELLA.
FROM "OCKAN MELODIES."
I* what fair grotto of the deep-green sea
Where rich festoons of sea-flowers darkly wave,
From trees of brilliant coral, that enwreathe
Their priceless branches through the marble cave;
Where rings for evermore the solemn knell
Of tinkling waters in the tuneful shell;
Where pensive sea-maids come in groups to weep,
Dost thou, my precious Isabella, sleep ]
Thou beautiful enchantment! thou wert like
A delicately wrought transparency,
Through which all angel-forms of tenderness
Shone in the light of maiden purity ;
Thy cheek was Love's pure altar, where he laid
With playful hand his roses pale and red,
While bathing in thine eyes of liquid blue,
By full-fringed curtains half concealed from view.
Spring has no blossom fairer than thy form ;
Winter no snow-wreath purer than thy mind ;
The dewdrop trembling to the morning beam
Is like thy smile, pure, transient, heaven-refined :
But ever o'er thy soul a shadow lay,
Stiil more apparent in the sunniest day ;
And ever when to bliss thy heart beat high,
The swell subsided in a plaintive sigh.
When I would speak of bliss, thou wouldst reply,
" Hush ! for I feel that all our hopes are vain ;
Some spirit whispers that I soon must die,
And every thrill of hope is mixed with pain."
At length fhy drooping form did prove too well
That there was poison in life's failing well ;
And then we sought youth's freshness to renew
Beneath a sky of softer sun and dew.
We journeyed with thee many a mournful day,
Till thou wert weary of the fruitless toil,
And prayed that we would take our homeward way
That thou mightst slumber in thy native soil.
I knelt and clasped thee in a wild embrace,
Concealing in thy robes my anguished face;
Yet sti.l thy snowy shoulder felt my tears,
And still thine ^Eolian voice was in mine ears.
I felt thy presence — and the veil of life
Was still between the coffin-scene and me ;
And Hope and Skill maintained their anxious strife,
Contending strongly with stern Destinv.
But when I saw thee dead, and felt the chill
Of thy white hand, so nerveless and so still,
When as my tears fell on thy lovely face —
There was no voice, no smile, no consciousness !
And when I saw thy form — so fair, so pure,
So dear, so precious — cast into the sea,
0 God of mercy ' how did I endure
The torture of that fearful agony ?
Oh, peerless sleeper ! down in the deep sea
My heart is in that billowy world with thee;
And still my spirit lingers on the wave
That rolls between my bosom and thy grave,
LYDIA JANE PEIRSON.
259
SUNSET IN THE FOREST.
COME now unto the forest, and enjoy
The loveliness of Nature. Look abroad
And note the tender beauty and repose
Of the magnificent in earth and sky.
See what a radiant smile of golden light
O'erspreads the face of heaven ; while the west
Bums like a living ruby in the ring
Of the deep green horizon. Now the shades
Are deepening round the feet of the tall trees,
Bending the head of the pale blossoms down
Upon their mother's bosom, where the breeze
Comes with a low, sweet hymn and balmy kiss,
To lull them to repose. Look now, and see
How every mountain, with its leafy plume,
Or rocky helm, with crest of gianl pine,
Is veiled with floating amber, and gives back
The loving smile of the departing sun,
And nods a calm adieu. Hark ! from the dell
"Where sombre hemlocks sigh unto the streams,
Which with its everlasting harmony
Returns each tender whisper, what a gush
Of 'liquid melody, like soft, rich tones
Of flute and viol, mingling in sweet strains
Of love and rapture, float away toward heaven !
'T is the ^Edoleo, from her sweet place
Singing to Nature's God the perfect hymn
Of Nature's innocence. Does it not seem
That Earth is listening to that evening song 1 —
There's such a hush on mountain, plain, and streams.
Seems not the Sun to linger in his bower
On yonder leafy summit, pouring forth
His glowing adoration unto God,
Blent with that evening hymn, while every flower
Bows gracefully, and mingles with the strain
Its balmy breathing'? Have you looked on aught
In all the panoply and bustling pride
Of the dense city with its worldly throng,
So soothing, so delicious to the soul,
So like the ante-chamber of high heaven,
As this old forest, with the emerald crown
Which it has worn for ages, glittering
With the bright halo of departing day.
While from its bosom living seraphim
Are hymning gratitude and love to God 1
THE LAST PALE FLOWERS.
TiiE last pale flowers are drooping on the stems,
The last sere leaves fall fluttering from the tree,
The latest groups of Summer's flying gems
Are hymning forth a parting melody.
The wings are heavy-winged and linger by,
WThispering to every pale and sighing leaf;
The sunlight fal's all dim and tremblingly,
Like love's fond farewell through the mist of grief.
There is a dreamy presence everywhere,
As if of spirits passing to and fro ;
We almost hear their voices in the air,
And feel their balmy pinions touch the brow.
We feel as if a breath might put aside
The shadowy curtains of the spirit-land,
Revealing all the loved and glorified
That Death has taken from Affection's band.
We call their names, and listen for the sound
Of their sweet voices' tender melodies ;
We look almost expectantly around
For those dear faces with the loving eyes.
We feel them near us, and spread out the scroll
Of hearts whose feelings they were wont to share,
That they may read the constancy of soul
And all the high, pure motives written there.
And then we weep, as if our cheek were pressed
To Friendship's holy, unsuspecting heart,
Which understands our own. Oh, vision blest '
Alas, that such illusions should depart!
I oft have prayed that Death may come to me
In such a spiritual, autumnal day ;
For surely it would be no agony
With all the beautiful to pass away.
TO THE \VOODS.
CO>TE to the woods in June —
'Tis happiness to rove
When Nature's lyres are all in tune,
And life all full of love
While from the dewy dells,
And every wildwood bower,
A thousand little feathered bells
Ring out the matin hour.
Come when the sun is high,
And earth all full in bloom,
When every passing summer sigh
Is languid with perfume ;
When by the mountain-brook
The watchful red-deer lies,
And spotted fawns in mossy nook
Have closed their wild, bright eyes ,
While from the giant tree,
Arid fairy of the sod,
A dreamy wind-harp melody
Speaks to the soul of God —
Whose beauteous gifts of love
The passing hours unfold,
Till e'en the sombre hemlock-boughs
Are tipped with fringe of gold.
Come when the sun is set,
And see along the west
Heaven's glory streaming through the gate
By which he passed to rest;
While brooklets, as they flow
Beneath the cool, sweet bowers,
Sing fairy legends soft and low
To groups of listening flowers ;
And creeping, formless shades
Make distance strange and dim,
And with the daylight softly fades
The wild-bird's evening hymn.
Come when the woods are dark,
And winds go fluttering by,
While here and there a phantom bark
Floats in the deep blue sky;
While gleaming far away
Bevond the aerial flood,
Lies in its starry majesty
The city of our God.
JANE T. WORT KING TON.
(Pied 1*47).
JANE TAYLOE LOMAX, a daughter of the
late Colonel Lomax of the United States
army, was a native of Virginia, and was con
nected with several of the most distinguished
families of that state. She was educated in
different parts of the country, as the exigen
cies of the military service led to changes
of residence by her father, and her large op
portunities were improved by a genial inter
course with various society, and a minute
and loving observation of nature. Her affec
tions, however, always centred in the "Old
Dominion," and nearly all her productions
appeared in the Southern Literary Messen
ger, which was edited by a personal friend, at
Richmond. She excelled most in the essay,
and there are few better illustrations of wo
manly feeling and intelligence than may be
found in her numerous compositions of this
kind, which were written in the four or five
years of her literary life. Her poems, sim
ple, graceful, and earnest, are reflections of
a character eminently truthful, refined, and
pleasing. She was married, in 1843, to F.
A.Worthington, M. D., of Ohio, and she died,
lamented by a wide circle of literary and per
sonal friends, in 1847. No collection of her
works has been published.
TO THE PEAKS OF OTTER.
FAIR are the sunset hues, thy dark brow blessing,
Oh mountain, with their gift of golden rays ;
And the few floating clouds, thy crest caressing,
Seem guardian angels to my raptured gaze :
[ have looked on thee through the saddest tears
That ever human sorrow taught to flow,
And thou wilt come, in life's recalling years,
Linked with the memory of my deepest wo.
Yet well I love thee, in thy silent mystery,
Thy purple shadows and thy glowing light —
Thou art to me a most poetic history
Of stillest beauty and of stormiest might :
I owe thee, oh, sublime and solemn mountain,
For many hours of vision and of thought,
Forpleasantdraughtsfrom fancy's gushing fountain,
For bright illusions by thy presence brought.
And more I thank thee, for the deeper learning
That soothes my spirit as I look on thee,
For thou hast laid upon my soul's wild yearning
The holy spell of thy tranquillity :
I shall recall thee with a long regretting,
And often pine to see thy brow, in vain,
While Thought, returning, fond and unforgetting,
Will trace thy form in glory-tints again.
And thou, in thine experience, all material,
Wilt never know how worshipped thou hast been ;
No glimpses of the life that is ethereal
Shadow thy face, eternally serene !
Thou hasl not felt the impulse of resistance —
Thy lot has linked thee with the earth alone:
Thou art no traveller to a new existence,
Thou hast no future to be lost or won.
The past for thee contains no bitter fountain —
Thou bast no onward mission to fulfil :
And I would learn from thee, oh silent mountain,
All things enduring, to be tranquil still !
And now, with that fond reverence of feeling
We owe whatever wakes our loftiest thought,
I can but offer thee, in faint revealing,
These idle thanks for all that thou hast brought.
LINES
TO ONE WHO WILL UNDERSTAND THEM.
I HAVE been reading, tearfully and sadly,
The lines we read together long ago,
When our experience glided on so gladly,
We loved to linger o'er poetic wo.
\Ve both have changed : our souls at last are finding
Their destiny — in silence to endure ;
And the strong ties, our best affections binding,
Are not the dreamlike ones our hearts once wore.
We live no longer in a world elysian,
With life's deep sorrowing still a thing to test;
And we have laid aside — a vanished vision —
The hope once wildly treasured as our best.
Yet though the tie that then our thoughts united
Lies severed now, a bright but broken chain —
Though other love hath lavishly requited
That early one, so passionate and vain —
Still, as I read the lines we read together,
Now hallowed by our parting's bitter tears,
As mournfully my spirit questions, Whither
Have gone the sweet illusions of those years !
I close the book, such vain remembrance bringing
Of all that now 'twere wiser to forget :
Say, are your thoughts, like mine, still idly clinging
To those old times of rapture and regret I
JANE T. WORTHINGTON.
2fil
MOONLIGHT ON THE GRAVE.
IT shineth on the quiet graves
Where weary ones have gone,
It watcheth with angelic gaze
Where the dead are left alone ;
And not a sound of busy life
To the still graveyard comes,
But peacefully the sleepers lie
Down in their silent homes.
All silently and solemnly
It throweth shadows round,
And every gravestone hath a trace
In darkness on the ground :
It looketh on the tiny mound
Where a little child is laid,
And it lighteth up the marble pile
Which human pride hath made.
It falleth with unaltered ray
On the simple and the stern,
And it showeth with a solemn light
The sorrows we must learn ;
It telleth of divided ties
On which its beam hath shone,
It whispereth of heavy hearts
Which " brokenly live on."
It gleameth where devoted ones
Are sleeping side by side,
It looketh where the maiden rests
Who in her beauty died.
There is no grave in all the earth
That moonlight hath not seen ;
It gazeth cold and passionless
Where agony hath been.
Yet it is well : that changeless ray
A deeper thought should throw,
When mortal love pours forth the tide
Of unavailing wo ;
It teacheth us no shade of grief
Can touch the starry sky,
That all our sorrow liveth here —
The glory is on high !
THE CHILD'S GRAVE.
IT is a place where tender thought
Its voiceless vigil keepeth ;
It is a place where kneeling love,
Mid all its hope, still weepeth :
The vanished light of all a life
That tiny spot encloseth,
Where, followed by a thousand dreams.
The little one reposeth.
It is a place where thankfulness
A tearful tribute giveth :
That one so pure hath left a world
Where so much sorrow liveth —
Where trial, to the heavy heart,
Its constant cross presenteth,
And every hour some trace retains
For which the soul reperiteth.
It is a place for Hope to rise,
While other brightness waneth,
And from the darkness of the grave
To learn the gift it gaineth —
From Him who wept, as on the earth
Undying love still weepeth —
From Him who spoke the blessed words,
" She is not dead, but sleepeth."
THE POOR.
HAVE pity on them ! for their life
Is full of grief and care :
You do not know one half the woes
The very poor must bear;
You do not see the silent tears
By many a mother shed,
As childhood offers up the prayer,
" Give us our daily bread."
And sick at heart, she turns away
From the small face, wan with pain,
And feels that prayer has long been said
By those young lips in vain.
You do not see the pallid cheeks
Of those whose years are few,
But who are old in all the griefs
The poor must struggle through.
Their lot is made of misery
More hopeless day by day,
And through the long cold winter nights
Nor light nor fire have they ;
But little children, shivering, crouch
Around the cheerless hearth,
Their young hearts weary with the want
That drags the soul to earth.
Oh, when with faint and languid voice
The poor implore your aid,
It matters not how, step by step,
Their misery was made ;
It matters not, if shame had left
Its shadow on their brow —
It is enough for you to see
That they are suffering now.
Deal gently with these wretched ones,
Whatever wrought their wo,
For the poor have much to tempt and test
That you can never know :
Then judge them not, for hard indeed
Is their dark lot of care ;
Let Heaven condemn, but human hearts
With human faults should bear.
And when within your happy homes
You hear the voice of mirth,
Wrhen smiling faces brighten round
The warm and cheerful hearth,
Let charitable thoughts go forth
For the sad and homeless one,
And your own lot more blest will be,
For every kind deed done.
Now is the time the very poor
Most often meet your gaze —
Have mercy on them, in these cold
And melancholy days.
262
JANE T. WORTHINGTON.
SLEEP.
" He giveth liis beloved sleep."
IT visitelh the desolate,
Who hath no friend beside,
And bringeth peace to saddened souls
Whose hope, deferred, had died :
It layeth its caressing hand
Upon the brow of care,
And calleth to the faded lips
The smile they used to wear.
And lovely is the angel light
Of a little child's repose,
The holiest and the sweetest rest
Our human nature knows —
Such rest as can not close the eyes
Grown old with many tears,
That never soothes the pilgrim path
Of life's dejected years.
" He giveth his beloved sleep !"
All thanks for such a boon,
And thanks, too, for the deeper sleep
That will be with us soon —
From which our long o'erladen hearts
Shall wake to pain no more,
But find fulfilled the fairest thoughts
They only dreamed before !
TO TWILIGHT.
PALE Memory's favored child thou art,
And many dreams are thine ;
With thine existence, all the past
Returning seems to twine.
Thou bringest to the souls bereaved
The look and tone they miss;
Thou callest from another world
The best beloved of this.
Thou comest like a veilr-d nun,
With footstep sad and slow ;
Thou summonest the solemn prayer
From heart and lip to flow.
Thou givest to fantastic things
A real shape and hue,
And thou canst, like a poet's dream,
Idealize the true.
Oh, if thy coining thus recalls
The past upon our sight,
How must the guilty shrink from thee,
Thou sad and solemn -light !
How must the hard and hopeless heart
Thy mystic power repel —
What fearful fantasies must fill
The convict's haunted cell !
How must his young and better days
Upon his visions dawn —
How bitterly that ruined soul
Must mourn its brightness gone !
Oh, often at thy thoughtful hour,
Beside the happy hearth,
My busy fancy flies to these,
The lost ones of the earth.
A voice amid their solitude
Is sounding evermore —
God help them in that loneliness
So fearful to endure !
THE WITHERED LEAVES.
THEY are falling thick and rapidly,
Before the autumn breeze,
And a sudden sound of mournfulness
Is heard among the trees,
Like a wailing for the scattered leaves,
So beautiful and bright,
Thus dying in their sunny hues
Of loveliness and light.
The wind that wafts them to their doom
Is the same that swept along
In the freshness of their summer-time,
And blessed them with its song :
That voice is still the merry one
That mid the sunshine fell —
Ye are not missed, ye glowing leave*,
By the friend ye loved so well.
But yet, no fearful fate is yours,
No shuddering at decay,
No shrinking from the blighting gust
That bears your life away :
The spring-tide, with its singing birds*,
Hath long ago gone by —
Ye had your time to bloom and live,
Ye have your time to die.
Oh, would that we, the sadder ones,
Who linger on the earth,
Like ye might wither when our lives
Had parted with their mirth :
Ye glow with beauty to the last,
And brighten with decay,
Ye know not of the mental war
That wears the heart away.
Ye have no memories to recall,
No sorrows to lament,
No secret weariness of soul
With all your pleasures blent:
To us alone the lot is cast,
To think, to love, to feel —
Alas ! how much of human wo
Those few brief words reveal !
SARAH ANNA LEWIS.
(Born 1824).
Mrss ROBINSON, now Mrs. LEWIS, is a na
tive of Baltimore. She inherits from her
fatner, who was a Cuban, of English and
Spanish parentage, and a man of liberal for
tune and cultivated understanding, the mel
ancholy temperament which is illustrated in
the greater part of her writings. After be
ing carefully educated — in part at the cele
brated school of Mrs. Willard, in Troy — she
was married to Mr. L. D. Lewis, an attorney
and counsellor, wrn soon after removed to
Brooklyn, where they have since resided.
The earliest writings of Mrs. Lewis ap
peared in the Family Magazine, edited by
the well-known Solomon Suuthwick, of Al
bany. She came more prominently before
the public in Records of the Heart, published
in New York in 1844. The principal poems
in this volume — Florence, Zenel, Melpome
ne, and Laone — are of considerable length,
and of a more rrmbitious design than most of
the compositions of our female poets. That
they evince fancy and an ear sensitive to har
mony, will be understood from the following
lines of Florence :
The waves are smooth, the wind is calm ;
Onward the golden stream is gliding,
Amid the myrtle and ihe palm,
And ilices its margin hiding;
Now sweeps it o'er the jutting shoals
In murmurs like despairing souls;
Now deeply, softly, flows along
Like ancient minstrels' warbled song;
Then slowlv, darkly, thoughtfully,
Loses itself in the mighty sea.
The sky is clear, the stars are bright,
The moon reposes on her light ;
On many a budding, fairy blossom,
Are glittering Evening's dewy tears,
As gleam the gems on Beauty's bosom
When she in festal garb appears.
Among the minor poems in this collection
is the following, which is quoted here for its
merits and for the praises it has received from
the acute critic Mr. Edgar A. Foe, who de
scribes it as "inexpressibly beautiful:
THE FORSAKEN.
It hath been said, for all who die
There is a tear ;
pining, bleeding heart to si^h
O'er every bier :
But in that hour of pain and dreail
Who will draw near
Around my humble couch, and shed
One farewell tearl
Who watch life's last, departing ray
In deep despair,
And soothe my spirit on its way
With holy prayer]
Wha/. mourner round my tier will come
1 In weeds of wo,"
And follow me to my long home —
Solemn and slow ]
When lying on my clayey bed,
In icy sleep,
Who there by pure affection led
Will come and weep —
By the pale moon implant the rose
Upon my breast,
And bid it cheer my dark repose,
My lowly rest]
Could I but know when I am sleeping
Low in the ground,
One faithful heart would there be keeping
Watch all night round,
As if some gem lay shrined beneath
That sod's cold gloom,
'T would mitigate the pangs of death
And light the tomb.
Yes, in that hour if I could feel
From halls of glee
And Beauty's presence one would steal
In secrecy,
And come and sit and weep by me
In night's deep noon —
Oh ! I would ask of Memory
No other boon.
But ah ! a lonelier fate is mine —
A deeper wo :
From all I love in youth's sweet time
I soon must go —
Draw round me mv cold robes of white,
In a dark spot
To sleep through Death's long, dreamless night,
Lone and forgot.
There is a very fine poem by Mother-
well, by which this may have been suggest
ed, though if Mrs. Lewis had read it, it was
of course forgotten by her when she coin
posed The Forsaken. The following verses*
are from the piece by Motherwell :
" When I beneath the cold red earth am sleeping.
Life's fever o'er.
Will there for me be any bright eye weeping.
That I 'm no more ]
204
SARA H A X N A L b W I S.
Will there l>c any heart si ill memory keeping
Of heretofore !
" When the bright sun upon that spot is shining
With purest ray, [twining,
And the small flowers their hiuls and blossoms
Burst through that clay,
Will there he one still on that spot repining
Lost hopes all day ?
" When no star twinkles with its eye of glory
On that low mound,
And wintry storms have with their ruins hoary
Its loneness crowned,
Will there be then one versed in Misery's story
Pacing it round !"
In the four years which succeeded the pub
lication of The Records of the Heart, Mrs.
Lewis was an occasional contributor to the
Democratic Review, the American Review,
and The Spirit of the Nineteenth Century.
In the autumn of 1848 she published a sec
ond volume, entitled The Child of the Sea,
and Other Poems. The Child of the Sea is
her best production. It is an interesting sto
ry, in a finely modulated rhythm, and with
many tasteful and happy expressions. It
evinces passion, fancy, and a degree of im
agination. The design is partly unfolded in
the opening line? :
Where blooms the myrtle, and the olive flings
Its aromatic breath upon the air ;
Where the sad bird of night for ever sings
Meet anthems for the children of despair,
Who silently, with wi'd, dishevelled hair,
Stray through those val'evs of perpetual bloom ;
Where hideous War and Murder from their lair
Stalk forth in awful and terrific gloom ;
Rapine and Vice disport on Glory's gilded tomb :
My fancy pensive pictures youthful Love,
Ill-starred, yet trustful, truthful, and sublime,
As ever angels chronicled above ;
The sorrowings of Beauty in her prime ;
Virtue's reward; the punishment of Crime;
The dark, inscrutable decrees of Fate;
Despair, untold before in prose or rhyme;
The wrong, the agony, the sleepless hate',
That mad the soul and make the bosom desolate.
Sunset upon the bay of Gibraltar is thus
happily described :
Fresh blows the breeze on Tarick's burnished bay,
The silent sea-mews bend them through the spray ;
The beauty-freighted barges bound afhr
To the soft music of the gay guitar
The sentry peal salutes the setting sun,
The haven's hum and busy din are done,
And weary sailors room along the strand,
Or stretoh their brawny limbs upon the sand ;
Feast, revel, game, engage in sage dispute,
Unthread the story, sound the tuneful lute;
)r bumming some rude n.r that stirs the heart,
Clue up the sails, or sprtad them to depart.
The hero of the poem is introduced:
On his high brow and glossy locks of jet.
The cap that decks the noble Greek is set ;
Folded his arms across his sable vest,
As if to keep the heart within his breast.
Lone are the thoughts that crowd upon his mind
And vainly strive in speech a vent to find ;
They writhe, they chafe, against restraint rebel,
Then powerless shrink within their silent cell.
His bosom pines for what it never knew —
Some soft, fair hcing to its beating true
A loveliness round which the soul may cling
As fades from earth the last soft smile of Day,
lie turns his melancholy steps away,
With eyes bent down, across the Vega strides,
Nor notes the fawn that tamely by him gJides,
The violets lifting up their azure eyes,
Like timid virgins when Love's steps surprise ;
His heavy heart forebodes some danger near,
And throbs alternately with joy and feai.
Night:
Sleep chains the earth : the bright stars glide on high
Filling with one effulgent smile the sky ;
And all is hushed so still, so silent there,
That one might hear an angel wing the air.
Delirium :
At last, I felt me borne as in a dream,
And wafted down some softly-gliding stream,
And heard the creaking cordage over head,
The sailor's merry song and nimble tread ;
Then backward sank to mental night again —
Delirium's world of fantasy and pain,
Where hung the fiery moon, and stars of blood
And phantom-ships rolled on the rolling flood.
Knowledge :
My mind by Grief was ripened ere its time,
And knowledge came spontaneous as a chime,
That flows into the soul unhid, unsought;
On earth, and air, and heaven, I fed my thought
On Ocean's teachings — Etna's lava-tears
Ruins and wrecks, and nameless sepulchres.
The Holy Land :
0 God ! it is a melancholy sight
To see that land whence sprung all sacred light ;
Delight of men, and most beloved of God ;
Where, happy first, our primal parents trod;
Where Hagar mourned, and Judah's minstrel sung,
With the dark pal! of desolation hung!
No band of warriors crowd the royal <jate,
No suppliant millions in the temples wait,
No prophet-minstrel swells the tide of song,
No mighty seer enchains the breathless throng;
But from the Jordan to the ^gean tide,
From Ganges to Euphrates' fertile side,
From Mecca's plains to lofty Lebanon,
The ashes of departed worlds are strown.
On CarmcPs heights, on Pisgah's tops I stood,
And paced Epirus' savage solitude;
Before the sepulchre of Jesus knelt,
And bv the Galilean waters dwelt;
Wandered among Assyria's ruins vast,
Feeding my mute thoughts on the silent past-
Pride, splendor, glory, deso'ation, crime,
And the deep mystery of the birth of Time.
. SARAH ANNA LEWIS.
265
Sleep :
— The oblivious world of Sleep —
That rayless realm where Fancy never beams —
That nothingness beyond the land of dreams.
Indifference :
— There are times when the sick soul
Lies calm amid the storms that round it roll,
Indifferent to Fate, or to what haven
By the terrific' tempest it is driven.
Greece :
Shrine of the Gods ! mine own eternal Greece !
When shall thy weeds be doffed, thy mourning cease,
The gyves that bind thy beauty rent, in twain,
And thou be living, breathing Greece again ?
Grave of the mighty — hero, poet, sage —
Whose deeds are guiding stars to every age !
Land unsurpassed in glory and despair,
Still in thy desolation thou art fair.
Low in sepulchral dust lies Pallas' shrine —
Low in sepulchral dust thy fanes divine,
And all thy visible self — yet, o'er thy clay,
Soul, beauty, linger, hallowing decay.
Not all the ills that vv»ir entailed on thee,
Not a.l the blood that stained Thennopyla,
Not a 1 the desolation traitors wrought,
Not all the wo and want invaders brought,
Not all the tears that slavery could wring
Frjin out thy heart of patient suffering,
Not all that drapes thy loveliness in night,
Can quench thy spirit's never-dying light ;
But hovering o'er the dust of gods enshrined,
It beams a beacon to the marc'.i of mind —
An oasis to sa^e and bard forlorn —
A guiding light to centuries unborn.
For thee I mourn ; thy blood is in my veins :
To thee by consanguinity's strong chains
I'm bound, and fain would die to make thee free;
But oh, there is no liberty for thee !
Not all the wisdom of thy greatest one —
Not all the bravejy of Thetis' son —
Not all the weight of mighty Phoebus' ire-
Not all the magic of the Athenian's lyre,
Can ever bid thv tears or mourning cease,
Or rend one gyve that binds thee, lovely Greece !
Zarn?n and Mynera :
And they were wed : Love chased their tears away,
As mists are driven before the smile of Day,
Gave softer radiance to both earth and sky,
And made each lovelier in the other's eye.
No discord rose to mar their happiness —
Each morning brought to them untasted bliss;
No panj,s, no sorrows came with varying years;
No cold distrust, no faithlessness, no tears :
But hand in hand, as Eve and Adam trod
Eden, they walked beneath the smile of God.
At morn they wandered through the dewy bowers,
Tended the birds, or trained the garden flowers ;
Or, weary of these health-inspiring arts,
With music and sweet song refreshed their hearts ;
Then all day seated in the colonnade,
Or where the myrtle made a genial shade,
They pored above the *omes of other days —
Cervantes' wit, and Oman's sounding lays;
And Dante's dreams, and Petrarch's deathless love ;
All that mad Tasso into numbers wove ;
Shakspere's deep harp, and Milton's loftier songr
From all creations of the minstrel throng,
Statues and busts by Grecian chisels wrought,
They drew the nutriment of Love and Thought.
Then, moved by Genius, Zamen swept his lyre,
And, like a meteor, flashed its latent fire
Upon the world, and thrilled its inmost heart:
All that his soul had gleaned from beauty, art,
Love, ruin, melancholy, anguish, wrong,
Hevenge, he wove into harmonious song,
And to his country and to lasting fame
Bequeathed a cherished and a spotless name.
Isabelle, or the Broken Heart, is a passion
ate story, with many passages of spirited de
scription and narration. In the following
passage the heroine — a wandering minstrel
girl who has deserted a noble home to follow
a false lover — goes to the confessional :
Wan the mournful maiden now
Across the balmy valley flies,
The cold, damp dew upon her brow,
The hot tears trickling from her eyes —
The last that Fate can ever wring
From her young bosom's troubled spring.
Swiftly beneath the myrtle she
Glides onward o'er the moonlit lea ;
By many a mausoleum speeds,
And tomb amidst the tuneful reeds,
Yet falters not — she feels no dread
When in the presence of the dead —
Alas ! what awe have sepulchres
For hearts that have been dead for years — •
Dead unto all external things —
Dead unto Hope's sweet offerings.
While with its lofty pinions furled,
The spirit floats in neither world !
She gains at length the holy fane,
Where death and solemn silence reign;
Hurries along the shadowy aisles,
Up to the altar where blest tapers
Burn dimly, and the Virgin smiles,
Midst rising clouds of incense vapors;
There kneels by the confession chair,
Where waits the friar with fervent prayer,
To soothe the children of despair.
Her hands are clasped, her eyes upraised,
Meek, beautiful, though coldly glazed,
And her pale cheeks are paling faster;
From under her simple hat of straw,
Over her neck her tresses flow,
Like threads of jet o'er alabaster —
From which the constant dews of night
Have stolen half their glossy light.
It is difficult to give a just impression of
any narrative poem by a selection of speci
mens. But the character and force of the
abilities of Mrs. Lewis will perhaps be bet
ter understood from these fragment? than
from a critical description.
266
SARAH ANNA LEWIS..
LAMENT OF LA VEGA IN CAPTIVITY.
O patria atnada! a ti suspira y llora
Ksta en sii carrel alma pereg-ima,
Llevadii errando de uno, eii otro instante."
I AM a captive on a hostile shore,
Caged, like the falcon from his native skies,
And doomed by agonizing grief to pour
In futile lamentations, tears, and sighs,
And feed the gaze of fools whom I despise.
Daily they taunt my heart with bitter sneers —
They prate of liberty, deeds great and wise,
And fill the air with patriotic cheers, [ears.
While human shackles clank around their listless
Hark ! hear ye not, mid those triumphal cries,
The clanking of tb.e Ethiopian's chains ?
His smothered curses from the ricefields ris« !
The loud, indignant beating of his veins,
Stirred by the lava hell that in him reigns •
Hear'st him not writhe against the dark decree
That gyves the soul — for it brute-rank maintains ?
The impetuous rushings of his heart, when he
Watches the eagle soar into the heavens all free 1
My soul, appalled, shrinks from hypocrisy,
And whatsoever bears deceptious name —
Under thy banner — heaven-born Liberty !
The fiends of war, inflated with acclaim,
Revel in crime and virtue put to shame :
They slaughter babes and wives without a cause,
And, holding up their reeking blades, exclaim,
"A victory !" — demolish homes, rights, laws,
And o'er the wreck send up to heaven their proud
hurrahs.
I am a captive while my country bleeds —
For Retribution loudly cries to Heaven,
And for the presence of her warriors pleads,
Till from her far the ruthless foe is driven :"
0 God, O God ! hast thou my country given
To direful fate ? Must I lie cooped up here,
While she by desecrating hands is riven ]
The sobs of Age, arid Beauty's shrieks of fear,
Like funeral knells afar are tolling in my ear !
And thou, ethereal one ! my spirit's bride,
My star, my sun, my universe — the beam
That lit my youthful feet mid ways untried —
Within me woke each high ambitious scheme,
And here dost hover o'er me in my dream,
Pressing thy lips to mine until I feel
Our quick hearts ebbing into one soft stream
Of holy love — ah, who will guard thy weal,
And from thy breast avert the dark marauder's steel 1
Oh, my distracted country ! child of pain
And anarchy ! — thee shall I see no more
Till thou art struggling in the tyrant's chain,
Oppressed by insult and by sorrow sore,
And steeping in thy children's sacred gore ]
Must thy dim star of glory set for aye 1
Must thou become the poet's Mecca 1 — lore
For antiquaries 1 — temple of decay ?
Wilt thou survive no more, my beautiful Monterey 1
•Spirit of Cortos — Montezuma — rise !
Let not the foe your cherished laj»d enslave !
Let her not fall a bloody sacrifice !
And thou, eternal Ci(' ' who from the grave
Didst wake to lead to victory the brave !*
Heroes who fell in Rone svalles vale,
And ye who fought by Darro's golden wave/f
From the Red VegaJ drove the Moslem pale,
Hear, in the spirit-land, my country's doleful wail,
UNA.
THEHK is but little on this earth
To fill the soul of lofty birth;
At best it much must feel the dearth
Of genial showers.
It binds Nepenthe to its lips,
Arid at life's sparking goblet sips,
While in the waters fennel dips
Its bitter flowers.
But Una, round thy heart's blest shrine,
No bitter fennel-blossoms twine :
By odor-breathing flowers divine
It is embalmed.
Sere lies my heart, and sere its world,
Since thou wert from its altars hurled ;
My spirit's pinions have been furled,
Dike sails becalmed.
Love on my heart thy form did stamp,
Thy beauty, like a vestal lamp,
Within my soul's cell, dark and damp,
For ever burns.
And unto thee, as to its goal,
Gazes athirst the stranded soul ;
As points the magnet to the pole,
My sick heart turns.
THE DEAD.
THK dead, the dead — ah, where are they]
What distant planet do they tread ?
What stars illume their blissful way 1
What suns their light around them shed ]
Do they look through the mystic veil
That hides them from our mortal eyes,
And catch the mourner's plaintive wail
That o'er their sepulchres doth rise 1
Do they the bitter pinings know
Of friends that hold their memory dear —
The many sighs — the tears that flow
Because they dwell no longer here ?
Oh, if they do, 'tis meed enough
For all the tears that we must shed :
The chains of wo we can not doff
Till we are numbered with the dead !
* Cid Campeador, after death, was dressed in his war
apparel, placed on his richly caparisoned steed, and led
forth from the walls of Valencia toward the Moorish
camp ; at the sight of whom, and the great number of his
followers, the Moors, in all sixty thousand, lied toward the
sea. — Souf key's Chronicles of the Cid.
t The Darro is a small stream running through the city
of Grenada. ?\nd containing in its bed particles of gold.
J The plan surrounding Grenada, and the scene of ac
tion between the Moors and the ChrUtians.
ANJSTA CORA MOWATT RITCHIE.
(Born 1820-Died 1870).
ANNA COEA OGDEN, a daughter of Mr. Sam
uel Gouverneur Ogden, now of the city of
New York, was born in Bordeaux during a
temporary residence of her parents in France.
Her father's family has long been distin
guished in the social and commercial history
of New York, and her mother was descend
ed from Francis Lewis, one of the signers of
the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Ogden
had lost the principal portion of a large for
tune in Miranda's celebrated expedition in
to South America, and his residence at Bor
deaux was occasioned by mercantile affairs
which in a few years secured for him a sec
ond time rank among the great merchants
and capitalists of his native city.
A melancholy interest was thrown around
Mr. Ogden's return, by the loss of two sons,
who were swept overboard in a storm dur
ing the voyage ; but the surviving members
of the family settled in his old home, and for
several years the education of the daughters
occupied and rewarded his best attention. In
the chateau in which they had lived near
Bordeaux, they had passed the holydays and
domestic anniversaries in masques and pri
vate theatricals, and there Anna Cora Ogden
gave, in the abandon with which she enact
ed childish characters, the first indications
of that histrionic genius for which she is now
distinguished. At thirteen she read with de
light the plays of Voltaire, and the next year
she personated the heroine of Alzire on her
mother's birthday. She had previously be
come acquainted with Mr. Mowatt, a young
lawyer of good family and nattering pros
pects, who then became a suitor for her hand,
and as her parents, to whom the marriage
was not objectionable, demanded its post
ponement until she should be seventeen years
of age, they eloped and were privately mar
ried by one of the French clergymen of the
cily.
Mr. and Mrs. Mowatt resided several years
near the city of New York, and in this period
she wrote Pelayo, or the Cavern of Covadon-
ga, a poetical romance, in six cantos, which
was published anonymously by the Harpers
' in 1836. Mr. Mowatt's health having de
clined, they seized the occasion of the mar
riage of a younger daughter of Mr. Ogden to
visit Europe. They resided in Germany and
France a year and a half, and in Paris Mrs.
Mowatt wrote Gulzare, the Persian Slave,
a five act play, which was printed in New
York soon after their return, in 1841. The
interruption of his business caused by this
visit to Europe, and the infirm condition of
his health, induced Mr. Mowatt to abandon
the profession of the law and to embark in
trade, and in the period of commercial dis
asters which followed, he lost nearly all his
property. Mr. Ogden had also suffered new
misfortunes, and these reverses led Mrs.
Mowatt to the first public display of her abil
ities. The dramatic readings of Mr. Van-
denhofThad been eminently successful in the
chief cities of the Union, and, confident of
her powers, she determined to follow his ex
ample. She had already acquired some rep
utation in literature, which secured for her
a favorable reception on her first appearance,
of which the results more than justified her
sanguine anticipations. Her readings from
the poets were repeated to large and applaud
ing audiences in Boston, Providence, and
New York. Mr. Mowatt having become a
partner in a publishing house, she turned her
attention again to literary composition, and
produced in quick succession several vol
umes, among which were Sketches of Cele
brated Persons, and the Fortune Hunter, a
Novel. In 1844 she wrote Evelyn, or the
Heart Unmasked, a Tale of Fashionable Life,
which is the last and in some respects the
best of her works of this description. It is
spirited and witty, but unequal, and was writ
ten too hastily and carelessly to be justly re
garded as the measure of her talents.
Her next work was Fashion, a Comedy,
which was successfully acted in the theatres
of New York and Philadelphia in the spiing
of 1845 ; and in the following autumn she
made her brilliant first appearance as an ac
tress, at the Park Theatre. She afierward
made two theatrical tours of the principal
267
2C8
AXXA COKA MOWATT RITCHIE.
cities of the United Suites, a;;d in the spring
of 1847 she brought out in New York her
third five act play, Arrnand, or the Child of
the People. In November of the same year
she sailed with her husband for England, and
she has since played in Manchester and Lon
don a wide range of characters, in many of
which she has won high praises from the
most judicious critics.
The poems of Mrs. Mowatt, except Peiayo
and her dramatic pieces, are brief and fugi
tive, and generally wanting in that anislic
finish of which she has frequently shown her
self to be capable.
Mr. Mowatt dying abroad, Mrs. Mowatt
returned to the United States, and after
playing in all our principal cities, slie took
leave of the stage in 1831, on marrying
Mr. W. F. Ritchie, the editor of the
Richmond Enquirer.
THE RAISING OF JAIRUS' DAUGHTER.
WITH ix the darkened chamber sat
A proud but stricken form ;
Upon her vigil-wasted cheeks
The grief-wrung tears were warm ;
And faster streamed they as she bent
Above the couch of pain,
Where lay a withering flower that wooed
Those fond eyes' freshening rain.
The raven tress on that young brow
Was damp with dews of death;
And glassier grew her upraised eye
With every fluttering breath.
Coldly her slender fingers lay
Within the mourner's grasp;
Lightly they pressed that fostering hand,
And stiffened in its grasp.
Then low the mother bent her knee,
And cried in fervent prayer —
" Hear me, O God ! mine own, my child,
Oh, holy Father, spare !
My loved, my last, mine only one —
Tear her not yet away ;
Leave this crushed heart its best, sole joy :
Be merciful, I pray !"
A radiance lit the maiden's face,
Though fixed in death her eye ;
A smile had met the angel's kiss
That stole her parting sigh !
And round her cold lips still that smile
A holy brightness shed,
As though she joyed her sinless soul
To Him who gave had fled.
The mother clasped the senseless form,
And shrieked in wild despair,
And kissed the icy lips and cheek,
And touched the dewy hair.
" No warmth — no life — my child, my child !
Oh for one parting word,
One murmur of that lutelike voice,
Though but an instant heard !
" She is not dead — she could not die —
So young, so fair, so pure ;
Spare mp, in pity spare this blow !
Ah else I can endure.
Take hope, take peace, this blighted hear
Strike with thy heaviest rod ;
But leave me this, thy sweetest boon,
Give back mv child, 0 God !"
The suppliant ceased ; her tears were staved
Hushed were those wailings loud ;
A hallowed peace crept o'er her soul ;
Her head to earth was bowed
Low as her knee ; for as she knelt,
About her, lo ! a flood
Of soft, celestial lustre fell—
A form beside her stood.
And slowly then her awe-struck face
And frighted eyes she raised ;
Her heart leaped high : those clouded orbs
Grew brighter as she gazed ;
For oh ! they rested on a shape
Majestic — yet so mild,
Imperial dignity seemed blent
With sweetness of a child.
It spake not, but that saintlike smile
Was full of mercy's light,
And power and pity from those eyes
Looked forth in gentle might;
Those angel looks, that lofty mien,
Have breathed without a word —
" Trust, and thy faith shall win thee all :
Behold, I am thy Lord !"
He turns, and on that beauteous clay
His godlike glances rest;
Commandingly the pallid brow
His potent fingers pressed :
The frozen current flows anew
Beneath that quickening hand ;
The pale lips, softly panting, move ;
She breathes at his command !
The spirit in its kindred realm
Has heard its Master's call ;
And back returning at that voice,
Resumes its earthly thrall.
And now from 'neath those snowy lids
It shines with meeker light,
As though 'twere chastened, purified,
By even that transient flight.
Loud ''swells the mother's cry of joy :
To Him how passing sweet !
Her child she snatches to her breast,
And sinks at Jesus' feet
" Glory to thee, Almighty God !
Who spared my heart this blow ;
And glory to thine only Son —
My Savior's hand I know !"
ANNA CORA MO WATT RITCHIE.
MY LIFE.
Mr life is a fairy's guy dream,
And thou art the genii, whose wand
Tints all things around with the beam,
The bloom of Titania's bright land.
A wish to my lips never sprung,
A hope in mine eyes never shone,
But, ere it was breathed by my tongue,
To grant it thy footsteps have flown.
Thy joys, they have ever been mine,
Thy sorrows, too often thine own ;
The sun that on me still would shine,
O'er thee threw its shadows alone.
Life's garland then let us divide,
Its roses I 'd fain see thee wear,
For one — but I know thou wilt chide —
Ah ! leave me its thorns, love, to bear !
LOVE.
THOU conqueror's conqueror, mighty Love ! to thee
Their crowns, their laurels, kings and heroes yield ;
Lo ! at thy shrine great Antony bows the knee,
Disdains his victor wreath, and flies the field !
From woman's lips Alcides lists thy tone,
And grasps the inglorious distaff for his sword.
An eastern sceptre at thy feet is thrown,
A nation's worshipped idol owns thee lord ;
And well fair Noorjehan his throne became,
When erst she ruled his empire in thy name.
The sorcerer Jarchas could to age restore
Youth's faded bloom or childhood's vanished glee ;
Magician Love ! canst thou not yet do more 1
Is not the faithful heart kept young by thee?
But ne'er that, traitor-b >som formed to stray,
Those perjured lips which twice thy vows have
breathed,
Can know the raptures of thy magic sway,
Or find the balsam in thy garland wreathed ;
Fancy or Folly may his breast have moved,
But he who wanders never truly loved.
TIME.
NAT, rail not at Time, though a tyrant he be,
\nd say not he cometh, colossal in might,
Our beauty to ravish, put Pleasure to flight, [tree ;
And pluck away friends, e'en as leaves from the
And say not Love's torch, which like Vesta's should
burn,
The cold breath of Time soon to ashes will turn.
You call Time a robber ? Nay, he is not so :
While Beauty's fair temple he rudely despoils,
The mind to enrich with its plunder he toils;
And, sowed in his furrows, doth wisdom not grow ?
The magnet mid stars points the north still to view ;
So Time 'mong our friends e'er discloses the true.
Tho' cares then should gather, as pleasures flee by,
Tho' Time from thy features the charm steal away,
He'll dim too mine eye, lest it s«v them decay;
And sorrows we've shared will kni; closer love's tie:
Then I 'II laugh at old Time, and at all he can do,
For he '"1 rob me in vain, if he leave me but you !
THY WILL BE DONE.
THY will be done ! O heavenly King,
I bow my head to thy decree ;
Albeit my soul not yet may wing
Its upward flight, great God, to thee !
Though I must still on earth abide,
To toil, and groan, and suffer here,
To seek for peace on sorrow's tide,
And meet the world's unfeeling jeer.
When heaven seemed dawning on my view
And I rejoiced my race was run,
Thy righteous hand the bliss withdrew ;
AnJ still I say, " Thy will be done !"
And though the world can never more
A world of sunshine be to me,
Though all my fairy dreams are o'er,
And Care pursues where'er I flee ;
Though friends I loved — the dearest — best,
Were scattered by the storm away,
And scarce a hand I warmly pressed
As fondly presses mine to-day :
Yet must I live — must live for those
Who mourn the shadow on my brow,
Who feel my hand can soothe their woes.
Whose faithful hearts I gladden now.
Yes, I will live — live to fulfil %
The nob'e mission scarce begun,
And pressed with grief to murmur still,
All Wise ! All Just ! « Thy will be done !'
ON A LOCK OF MY MOTHER'S HAIR
WHOSK the eyes thou erst didst shade,
Down what bosom hast thou rolled,
O'er what cheek unchidden played,
Tress of mingled brown and gold !
Round what brow, say, didst thou twine ?
Angel-mother, it was thine !
Cold the brow that wore this braid,
Pale the cheek this bright lock pressed,
Dim the eyes it loved to shade,
Still the ever-gentle breast —
All that bosom's struggles past,
When it held this ringlet last.
In that happy home above,
Where all perfect joy hath birth,
Thou dispensest good and love,
Mother, as thou didst on earth.
And though distant seems that sphere,
Still I feel thee ever near.
Though my longing eye now views
Thy angelic mien no more,
Still thy spirit can infuse
Good in mine, unknown before.
Still the voice, from childhood dear,
Steals upon my raptured ear — •
Chiding every wayward deed,
Fondly praising every just,
Whispering soft, when strength I need,
" Loved one ! place in God thy trust '"
Oh, 'tis more than joy to feel
Thou art watching o'er my weal !
MARY NOEL MEIGS.
THE father of Miss BLEECKER (now Mrs.
MKIGS) was of the Bleecker family so long
distinguished in the annals of New York,
and among her paternal connexions were
Mrs. Anne Eliza Bleecker and Mrs. Fau-
geres, whose poems have been commented
upon in an earlier part of this volume. Her
maternal grandfather was the late Major Wil-
liarr Popham, the last survivor of the staff
of Washington. In 1834 Miss Bleecker wag
married to Mr. Pierre E. F. McDonald, who
died at the end of ten years. In 1845 she
published an octavo volume entitled Poems
by M. N. M., and she has since written many
poems an4 prose essays for the magazines,
besides several volumes of stories for chil
dren, &c. In the autumn of 1848 she was
married to Mr. Henry Meigs, of New York.
JUNE.
LAUGHINGLY thou comest,
Rosy June,
With thy light and tripping feet,
And thy garlands fresh and sweet,
A iid thy waters all in tune ;
With thy gift of buds and bells
For the uplands and the dells,
With the wild-bird and the bee
On the blossom or the tree,
And my heart leaps forth to meet thee,
With a joyous thrill to greet thee,
Rosy June ;
And I love the flashing ray
Of the rivulets at play,
As they sparkle into day,
Rosy June !
Most lovely do I call thee,
Laughing June !
For thy skies are bright and blue,
As a sapphire's brilliant hue,
And the heats of summer noon,
Made cooler by thy breath —
O'er the clover-scented heath,
Which the scythe must sweep so soon:
And tliou fan'st the fevered cheek
With thy softest gales of balm,
Till the pulse so low and weak
Beateth stronger and more calm.
Kind physician, thou dost lend
Like a tried and faithful friend,
To the suffering and the weary every blessing thou
canst bring;
By the sick man's couch of pain,
Like an angel, once again
Thou hast shed a gift of healing from the perfume-
laden wing ;
And the students listless ear,
As a dreamy sound and dear,
Hath Caught a pleasant murmur of the insect's busy
bum,
Where arching branches meet
O'er the turf beneath his feet,
And a thousand summer fancies with the melody
have come ;
And be turneth from the page
Of the prophet or the sage,
And forgetteth all the wisdom of his books;
For his heart is roving free
With the butterfly and bee,
And chimeth with the music of the brooks,
Singing still their merry tune
In the flashing light of noon,
One chord of thy sweet lyre, laughing June !
I have heart-aches many a one,
Rosy June !
And I sometimes long to fly
To a world of love and light,
Where the flowerets never die,
Nor the day gives place to night;
Where the weariness and pain
Of this mortal life are o'er,
And we fondly clasp again
All the loved ones gone before :
And I think, to lay my head
On some green and sheltered bed,
Where, at dawning or at noon,
Come the birds with liquid note
In each tender, warbling throat,
Or the breeze with mournful tune
To sigh above my grave —
Would be all that I should crave,
Rosy June !
But when thou art o'er the earth,
With thy blue and tranquil skies,
And thy gushing melodies,
And thy many tones of mirth —
When thy flowers perfume the air,
And thy garlands wreatbe the bough,
And thy birthplace even now
Seems an Eden bright and fair —
How my spirit shrinks away
From the darkness of the tomb,
And I shudder at its gloom
WThile so beautiful the day.
Yet I know the skies are bright
In that land of love and liffht,
270
MARY NOEL MEIGS.
271
Brighter, fairer than thine own, lovely June !
No shadow dims the ray,
No night obscures the day,
But ever, ever reigneth high eternal noon.
A glimpse thou art of heaven,
Lovely June !
Type of a purer clime
Beyond the flight of time,
Where the amaranth flowers are rife
By the placid stream of life,
For ever gently flowing ;
Where the beauty of the rose
In that land of soft repose
Nor blight nor fading knows,
In immortal fragrance blowing.
And my prayer is still to see,
In thy blessed ministry,
A transient gleam of regions that are all divinely
fair ;
A foretaste of the bliss
In a holier world than this,
And a place beside the loved ones who are safely
gathered there.
THE SPELLS OF MEMORY.
IT was but the note of a summer bird,
But a dream of the past in my heart it stirred,
And wafted me far to a breezy spot,
Where blossomed the blue forget-me-not.
A nd the broad, green boughs gave a checkered gleam
To the dancing waves of a mountain-stream,
And there, in the heat of a summer day,
Again on the velvet turf I lay,
And saw bright shapes in the floating clouds,
And reared fair domes mid their fleecy shrouds,
As I looked aloft to the azure sky,
And longed for a bird's soft plumes to fly,
Till lost in its depths of purity.
Alas ! I have waked from that early dream :
Far, far away is the mountain-stream;
And the dewy turf, where so oft I lay,
And the woodland flowers, they are far away ;
And the skies that once were to me so blue,
Now bend above with a darker hue :
And yet I may wander in fancy back
At Memory's call to my childhood's track,
And the fount of thought hath been deeply stirred
By the passing note of a summer bird.
It was but the rush of the autumn wind,
But it left a spell of the past behind,
And I was abroad with my brothers twain
In the tangled paths of the wood again :
Whore the leaves were rustling beneath our feet,
And the merry shout of our gleesome mood
Was echoed far in the solitude,
As we caught the prize which a kindly breeze
Sent down in a shower from the chestnut-trees.
Oh ! a weary time hath passed away
Since my brothers were out by my side at play ;
A weary time, with its weight of care,
And its toil in the city's crowded air,
And its pining wish for the hilltops high ;
For Ihn laughing stream and the clear blue sky ;
For the shaded de1.!, and the leafy halls
Of the old green wood where the sunlight falls.
But I see the haunts of my early days —
The old green wood where the sunshine plays,
And the flashing stream in its course of light,
And the hilltops high, and the sky so bright,
And the silent depths of the shaded dell,
Where the twilight shadows at noonday fell :
And the mighty charm which hath conquered these
Is naught, save a rush of the autumn breeze.
It was but a violet's faint perfume,
But it bore me back to a quiet room,
Where a gentle girl in the spring-time gay
Was breathing her fair young life away,
Whose light through the rose-hued curtains fell,
And tinted her cheek like the ocean-shell ;
And the southern breeze on its fragrant wings
Stole in with its tale of all lovely things ; [hours,
Where Love watched on through the long, long
And Friendship came with its gift of flowers;
And Death drew near with a stealthy tread,
And lightly pillowed in dusl her head,
And sealed up gently the lids so fair,
And damped the brow with its clustering hair,
And left the maiden in slumber deep,
To waken no more from that tranquil sleep.
Then we laid the flower her hand had pressed
To wither and die on her gentle breast ;
And back to the shade of that quiet room
I go withjhe violet's faint perfume.
LOVE'S ASPIRATION.
WHAT shall I ask for thee,
Beloved, when at the silent eve or golden morn
I seek the Eternal Throne on bended knee,
And to the God of Love my soul is borne,
Ascending through the angel-guarded air,
On the swift wings of Prayer 1
W7hat shall I ask ? the bliss
Of earth's poor votaries I pleasures that must fade
As dew from summer blossom 1 Oh ! for this
Thy fresh young spirit, dear one, was not made :
Purer and holier must its blessings be —
I ask not this for thee
For thee, fair child, for thee,
In thy fresh, budding girlhood, shall my prayer
Go up unceasing, that the witchery
Of earthly tones alluring may not snare
Thy heart from purer things ; but God's own hand
Lead to the better land.
Ever shall Love for thee
Implore Heaven's best and holiest benison,
Its perfect peace — that peace which can not be
The gift of Earth ; for this when upward borne
My soul grows earnest, angel-lips of flame
May echo thy sweet name.
Ay, in their world of light
Immortal voices catch a mother's praye-
And while I kneel, some waiting seraph bngn«
Swift on expanded wing, the boon may bear
And, soft as falling dewdrops, kindly shed
Heaven's peace o'er thy young head.
FRANCES S. () S G O U D.
appears the poet, and the affectionate and
enthusiastic woman. Cf none of our wri
ters has the excellence been more steadily
progressive. Every month her powers have
seemed to expand and her sympathies to
deepen. With an ear delicately susceptible
to the harmonies of language, and a light
and pleasing fancy, she always wrote musi
cally and ofien with elegance ; but her later
poems are marked by a freedom of style, a
tenderness of feeling, and a wisdom of ap
prehension, and are informed with a grace, so
undefinable, but so pervading and attractive,
that the consideration to which she is enti
tled is altogether different in kind, as well as
in degree, from that which was awarded to
the playful, piquant, and capricious impro
visatrice of former years.
A FAREWELL TO A HAPPY DAY.
GOOH-RY, good-by, t.hou gracious, golden day:
Through luminous tears thou smilest, far away
In the blue heaven, thy sweet farewell to me,
And I, through my tears, gaze and smile with thee.
I see the last faint, glowing amber gleam
Of thy rich pinion, like a lovely dream,
Whose floating glory melts within the sky,
And now thou 'rt passed for ever from mine eye !
Were we not friends — best friends — my cherished
Did I not treasure every eloquent ray [day 1
Of golden light arid love thou gavest me 1
And have f not been true — most true to thee 1
And thcu — thou earnest like a joyous bird,
Whose sacred wings by heaven's own air were
And lowly sang me all the happy time [stirred,
Dear, soothing stories of that blissful clime !
And more, oh ! more than this, there came with thee,
From Heaven, a stranger, rare and bright to me —
A new, sweet JOY — a smiling angel guest,
That softly asked a home within my breast.
For talking sadly with my soul alone,
I heard far off and faint a music tone :
It seemed a spirit's call —so soft it stole
On fairy wings into my waiting soul.
I knew it summoned me to something sweet,
And so I followed it with faltering feet —
And found — what I had prayed for with wild tears —
A rest, that soothed the lingering grief of years !
So for that deep, perpetual joy, my day !
And for all lovely things that came to play
In thy glad smile — the pure and pleading flowers
That crowned with their frail bloom thy flying hours :
The sunlit clouds — the pleasant air that played
Its low lute-music mid the leafy shade —
. Arid, dearer far, the tenderness that taught
My soul a new and richer thrill of thought :
For these — for all — bear ihou to Heaven for me
The grateful thanks with which I mission thee !
Then should thy sisters, wasted, wronged, upbraid,
Speak thou for me — for thou wert not betrayed !
'Twas little, true, I could to thee impart —
1, with my simple, frail, and wayward heart ;
But that I strove the diamond sands to light,
In Life's rich hour-glass, with Love's rainbow flight :
And that one generous spirit owed to me
A moment of exulting ecstasy ;
A.nd that I won o'er wrong a queenly sway —
For this, thou 'It smile for me in Heaven, my Day ! i
' 18
HAD WE BUT MET.
HAH we but met in life's delicious spring,
Ere wrong and falsehood taught me doubt and fear,
Ere hope came back with worn and wounded wing,
To die upon the heart she could not cheer :
Ere I love's precious pearl had vainly lavished,
Pledging an idol deaf to my despair —
Ere one by one the buds and blooms were ravished
From life's rich garland by the clasp of Care.
Ah, had we then but met ! I dare not listen
To the wild whispers of my fancy now !
My full heart beats — my sad, drooped lashee glisten
I hear the music of thy boyhood's vow !
I see thy dark eyes lustrous with love's meaning,
I feel thy dear hand softly clasp my own ;
Thy noble form is fond'y o'er me leaning —
It is too much — but ah ! the dream has flown I
How had I poured this passionate heart's devotion
In voiceless rapture on thy manly breast;
How had I hushed each sorrowful emotion,
Lulled by thy love to sweet, untroubled re&t !
How had I knelt hour after hour beside thee,
When from thy lips the rare, scholastic lore
Fell on the soul that all but deified thee,
While at each pause, I. childlike, prayed for n.ore •
How had I watched the shadow of each feeling
That moved thy soul, glance o'er that radiant face,
"Taming my wild heart" to that dear revealiiig,
And glorying in thy genius and thy grace :
Then hadst thou loved me with a love abiding,
And I had now been less unworthy thee ;
For I was generous, gui'eless, and confiding —
A frank enthusiast — buoyant, fresh, and free.
But now, my loftiest aspirations perished,
My holiest hopes — a jest for lips profane-
The tenderest yearnings of my soul uncherisned—
A sou'-worn slave in Custom's iron chain :
Checked by those tics that make my lightest sign,
My faintest blush, at thought of thee, a crime •
How must I still my heart, and school my eye,
And count in vain the slow, dull steps of Timt !
W ilt thou come back 1 Ah ! what avails to ask thee,
Since Honor, Faith, forbid thee to return 1
Yet to forgetfulncss I dare not task tbee,
Lest thou too soon that easy lesson leani '
Ah, come not back, love ! even through memory's eai
Thy tone's melodious murmur thrills my heart:
Come not with that fond smile, so frank, so dear-
While yet we may, let us for ever part !
274
FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
TO THE SPIRIT OF POETRY.
LE A.VK me not yet ! Leave me not cold and lonely,
Thou dear ideal of rny pining heart!
Thou art the friend — the beautiful — the only,
Whom I would keep, though a 1 the world depart.
Thou, that dost veil the frailest flower with glory,
Spirit of light, and loveliness, and truth !
Thou that didst tell me a sweet, fairy story,
Of the dim future, in my wistful youth ;
Thou, who canst weave a halo round the spirit,
Through which naught mean or evil dare intrude,
Re>ume not yet the gift, which I inherit
From Heaven and :thee, that dearest, holiest good !
Leave me not now ! Leave me not cold and lonely,
Thou starry prophet of my pining heart !
Thou art the friend — the tenderest — the only,
With whom, of all, 'twould be despair to part.
Thou that cam'st to me in my dreaming childhood,
Shaping the changeful clouds to pageants rare,
Peopling the smiling vale and shaded wildwood
With airy beings, faint yet strangely fair ;
Telling me ah the seaborn breeze was saying,
While it went whispering thro' the willing leaves,
Bidding me listen to the light rain playing
Its pleasant tune about the household eaves ;
Tuning the low, sweet ripp'.e of the river,
Ti'.l its melodious murmur seemed a song,
A tender and sad chant, repeated ever,
A sweet, impassioned plaint of love and wrong-
Leave me not yet ! Leave me not cold and lonely,
Thou star of promise o'er my clouded path !
Leave not the life that borrows from thee only
All of delight and beauty that it hath.
Thou, that when others knew not how to love me,
Nor cared to fathom half my yearning soul,
Didst wreathe thy flowers of light around, above me,
To woo and win me from my grief's control :
By all my dreams, the passionate and holy,
When thou hast sung love's lullaby to me,
By all the childlike worship, fond and lowly,
Which I have lavished upon thine and thee ;
By all the lays my simple lute was learning,
To echo from thy voice, stay with me still !
Once flown — a'as! for thee there's no returning :
The charm will die o'er valley, wood, and hill.
Tell me not Time, whose wing my brow has shaded,
Has wither' d spring'ssweet bloom within my heart:
Ah. no ! ilie rose of love is yet unfaded,
Though hope an4 joy. its sister flowers, depart.
Well do I know that I have wronged thine altar
With the light offerings of an idler's mind.
And thus, with shame, my pleading prayer I falter,
Leave me not, spirit ! deaf, and dumb, and blind :
Deaf to the mystic harmony of Nature,
Blind to t'.ie beauty of her stars and flowers;
Leave rne not, heavenly yet hirnan teacher,
Lonely and lost in this cold world of ours.
Heaven knows I need thy music and thy beauty
Still to beguile me on my weary way,
To lighten to my soul the cares of duty,
And b ess with radiant dreams the darkened day :
To cnarm my wild heart in the worldly revel,
L*est J, too, join the aimless, false, and vain;
Let me not lower to the soulless level
Of those whom now I pity and disdain.
Leave me not yet — leave me not cold and pining,
Thou bird of paradise, whose plumes of light.
Where'er they rested, left a glory sinning ;
Fly not to heaven, or let me share thy flight.
REFLECTIONS.
ASK why the holy starlight, or the blush
Of summer blossoms, or the balm that floats
From yonder lily like an angel's breath,
Is lavished on such men ! God gives them all
For some high end ; and thus the seeming waste
Of her rich soul — its starlight purity,
Its every feeling delicate as a flower,
Its tender trust, its generous confidence,
Its wondering disdain of littleness —
These, by the coarser sense of those around her
U ncomprehended, may not all be vain :
But win them — they unwitting of the spell —
Bv ties unfelt, to nobler, loftier life.
And they dare blame her ! they whose every thought,
Look, utterance, act, has more of evil in ' t,
Than e'er she dreamed of or could understand ;
And she must blush before them, with a heart
Whose lightest throb is worth their all of life !
They boast their charity : oh, idle boast !
They give the poor, forsooth, food, fuel, shelter;
Faint, chill'd, and worn, her ?oul imp'ored a pittance,
Her soul asked alms of theirs and was denied !
It was not much it came a-begging for,
A simple boon, only a gent'e thought,
A kindly judgment of such deeds of hers
As passed their understanding, but to her
Seemed natural as the blooming of a flower :
For God taught her — but they had learned of men
Their meagre task of how to mete out love,
A selfish, sensual love, most unlike hers.
God taught the tendril where to cling, and she
Learned the same lovely lesson, with the same
Unquestioning and pliant trust in Him.
And yet that He should let a lyre of heaven
Be played on by such hands, with touch so rude,
Might wake a doubt in less than perfect faith,
Perfect as mine, in his beneficence.
LENORE.
On ! fragi e and fair, as the delicate cha ices,
WTrought with so rare and subtle a skill,
Bright relics, that tell of the pomp of those palaces,
Venice — the sea-goddess — glories in still.
Whose exquisite texture, transparent and tender,
A pure blush a'one from the ruby wine takes;
Yet ah ! if some fa'se hand, profaning its splendor,
Dares but to tain it with poison — it breaks !
So when Love poured through thy pure heart hia
lightning,
On thy pale cheek the soft rose-hues awoke —
So when wild Passion, that timid heart frightening
Poisoned the treasure — it trembled and broke !
FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
THE COCOA-NUT TREE.
On, the green and the graceful — the cocoa-nut tree !
The lone and the lofty— it loves like me
The flash, the foam of the heaving sea,
And the sound of the surging waves
In the shore's unfathorned caves :
With its state'y shaft, and its verdant crown,
And its fruit in clusters drooping down —
Some of a soft and tender green,
And some all ripe and brown between,
And flowers, loo, blending their lovelier grace
Like a blush through the tresses on Beauty's face.
Oh, the lovely, the free,
The cocoa-nut tree,
Is the tree of a!l trees for me !
The willow, it waves with a tenderer motion,
The oak and the elm with more majesty rise ;
But give me the cocoa, that loves the wild, ocean,
And shadows the hut where the is'and-girl lies.
In the Nicobar islands, each cottage you see,
Is built of the trunk of the cocoa-nut tree,
While its leaves matted thickly, and many times o'er,
Make a thatch for its roof and a mat for its floor;
Its shel s the dark islander's beverage hold —
"fis a goblet as pure as a goblet of gold.
Oh, the cocoa-nut tree,
That blooms by the sea,
Is the tree of all trees for me !
In the Nicobar isles of the cocoa-nut tree,
They build the light shallop — the wild, the free ;
They weave of its fibres so firm a sail.
It will weather the rudest southern gale ;
They fill it with oil, and with coarse jaggree —
With arrack and coir, from the cocoa-nut tree.
The lone, the free,
That dwells in the roar
Of the echoing shore —
Oh, the cocoa-nut tree for me !
Rich is the cocoa-nut's milk and meat,
And its wine, the pure palm-wine, is sweet;
It is like the bright spirits we sometimes meet —
The wine of the cocoa-nut tree :
For they tie up the embryo bud's soft wing,
From which the Irossoms and nuts would spring ;
And thus forbidden to bless with bloom
Its native air, and with soft perfume,
The subtle spirit that struggles there
Distils an essence more rich and rare,
And instead of a blossom and fruitage birth,
The delicate palm-wine oozes forth.
Ah, thus to the child of genius, too,
The rose of beauty is oft denied ;
But a'l the richer, that high heart, through
The torrent of feeling pours its tide,
And purer and fonder, and far more true,
Is that passionate sou! in its lonely pride.
Oh, the fresh, the free,
The cocoa-nut tree,
Is the tree of all trees for me !
The glowing sky of the Indian isles,
Lovingly over the cocoa-nut smiles,
And the Indian maiden lies below,
\V hero its leaves their graceful shadow throw :
She weaves a wreath of the rosy shelh
That gem the beach where the cocoa dwells ;
She binds them into her long black hair,
And they b'.ush in the braids like rosebuds there;
Her soft brown arm, and her graceful neck,
With those ocean-blooms she joys to deck.
Oh, wherever you see
The cocoa-nut tree,
There will a picture of beauty be !
A MOTHER'S PRAYER IN ILLNESS.
YKS, take them first, my Father ! Let my doves
Fold their white wings in heaven, safe on thy breast,
Ere I am called away : I dare not leave [hearts!
Their young hearts here, their innocent, thoughtless
Ah, how the shadowy train of future ills
Comes sweeping down life's vista as I gaze !
My May ! my careless, ardent-tempered May —
My frank and frolic child, in whose blue eyes
Wild joy and passionate wo alternate rise ;
Whose cheek the morning in her soul illumes;
Whose little, loving heart a word, a glance,
Can sway to grief or glee ; who leaves her play,
And puts up her sweet mouth and dimpled arms
Each moment for a kiss, and softly asks,
W7ith her clear, flutelike voice, " Do you love me 1"
Ah, let me stay ! ah, let me still be by,
To answer her and meet her warm caress !
For I away, how oft in this rough world
That earnest question will be asked in vain !
How oft that eager, passionate, petted heart,
Will shrink abashed and chilled, to learn at length
The hateful, withering lesson of distrust !
Ah ! let her nestle still upon this breast,
In which each shade that dims her darling face
Is felt and answered, as the lake reflects
The clouds that cross yon smiling heaven ! andthou,
My modest Ellen — tender, thoughtful, true;
Thy soul attuned to all sweet harmonies :
My pure, proud, noble Ellen ! with thy gifts
Of genius, grace, and loveliness, half hidden
'Neath the soft veil of innate modesty,
How will the world's wi'd discord reach thy heart
To startle and appal ! Thy generous scorn
Of all things base and mean — thy quick, keen taste,
Dainty and delicate— thy instinctive fear
Of those unworthy of a soul so pure,
Thy rare, unchildlike dignity of mien,
All — they will all bring pain to thee, my child !
And oh, if even their grace and goodness meet
Cold looks and careless greetings, how will all
The latent evil yet undisciplined
In their young, timid souls, forgiveness find ?
Forgiveness, and forbearance, and soft chiding*,
WThich I, their mother, learned of Love to give !
Ah, let me stay !— albeit my heart is weary,
Weary and worn, tired of its own sad beat,
That finds no echo in this busy world
Which can not pause to answer — tired alike
Of joy and sorrow, of the day and night :
Ah, take them first, my Father, and then me I
And for their sakes, for their sweet sakes, my Father
Lei me find rest beside them, at thy feet !
FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
LITTLE CHILDREN.
"Of sv.rh is the kingdom of heaven."
A xi) yet we check and chide
The airy angels as they float about us,
With rules of so-called wisdom, till they grow
The same tarne slaves to custom and the world.
And day by day the fresh frank soul that looked
Out of those wistful eyes, and smiling played
With the wild roses of that changing cheek,
And modulated a'l those earnest tones,
And danced in those light foot-falls to a tune
Heart-heard by them, inaudible to us,
Folds closer its pure wings, whereon the hues
They caught in heaven already pale and pine,
And shrinks amazed and scared back from our gaze.
And so the evil grows. The graceful flower
May have its own sweet way in bud and bloom —
May drink, and dare with upturned gaze the light,
Or nest'e 'neath the guardian leaf, or wave
Tts fragrant be'ls to every roving breeze,
Or wreathe with b'ushinT grace the fragile spray
In bashful loveliness. The wild wood-bird
May p'ume at will his wings, and soir or sing ;
The mountain brook may wind where'er it would,
Dash in wild music down the deep ravine,
Or, ripp'ing drowsily in forest haunts,
Dream of the floating cloud, the waving flower,
And murmur to itse'f sweet lulling words
In broken tones so like the faltering speech
Of early childhood : but our human flowers,
Our soul-birds, caged and pining — they must sing
And grow, not as their own but our caprice
Suggests, and so the blos^on and the lay
Are but half bloom and music at the best.
And if by chance some brave and buoyant soul,
More bold or less forgetful of the lessons
God taught them first, disdain the rule — the bar —
And, wildly beautiful, rebellious rise,
How the hard world, half startled from itself,
Frowns the bright wanderer down, or turns away,
And leaves her lonely in her upward path.
Thank God ! to such his smile is not denied.
A SERMON.
Tnou discord in this choral harmony !
That dost profane the loveliest light and air
God ever gave : be still, and look, and listen .
Canst see yon fair cloud floating in the sun,
And blush not, watching its serener life ?
Canst hear the fragrant grass grow up toward God,
With low, perpetual chant of praise and prayer,
Nor grieve that your soul grows the other way 1
Forego that tone, made harsh by a hard heart,
And hearken, if you're not afraid to hearken,
Yon robin's careless carol, glad and sweet,
Mockn.g the sunshine with his merry trill :
Suppose you try to chord your voice with his —
13<it first, learn love and wisdom of him, lady !
How dare you bring your inharmonious heart
To such a scene 1 How dare you let your voice
Tulk out ot tune so with the voice of God
In oa»rti and sky 1 The balmy air about ycxi
Is Heaven's great gift, vouchsafed to you to make
Vocal with all melodious truths, and you
Fret it with false words, from a falser soul,
And poison it with the breath of calumny !
Learn reverence, bold one, for true Nature's heart,
If not for that your sister woman bears !
For Nature's heart, p'eading in every wave,
That wastes its wistfu1 music at your feet.
Take back your cold, inane, and carping mind
Into the world you came from and belong to —
The world of common cares and sordid aims :
These happy haunts can spare ycu, little one !
The dew-fed grass will grow as well without you,
The woodland choirs will scarce require your voice,
The starlit wave without your smile will g'isien,
The proud patrician trees will miss you not.
Go, waste God's glorious boon of summer hours
Among your mates, as sha'low, in sma'l talk
Of dress, or weather, or the last elopement !
Go, mar the canvass with distorted face
Of dog or cat; or worse, profanely mock,
With gaudy beads, the pure light-painted flower !
Go. trim your cap, embroider your visite,
Crocher a purse, do any petty thing :
But, in the name of truth, religion, beauty,
Let Nature's marvellous mystery alone,
Nor ask such airs, such skies, to waste the wealth
They keep for nobler beings, upon you !
Or stay, and learn of every bird and bloom,
That sends its heart to Heaven in song or sigh,
The lesson that you need — the law of love !
THE CHILD PLAYING WITH A WATCH.
ART thou playing with Time in thv sweet baby-
glee ?
WTill he pause on his pinions to frolic with thee 7
Oh, show him those shadowless, innocent eves,
That smile of bewi'dered and beaming surprise ;
Let him look on that cheek where thy rich hair
* reposes,
Where dimples are play ing " bopeep" with the roses:
His wrinkled brow press with light kisses and warm,
And clasp his rough neck with thy soft wreathing
arm.
Perhaps thy bewitching and infantine sweetness
May win him, for once, to delay in his fleetness — •
To pause, ere he rifle, relent'ess in flight,
A blossom so glowing of bloom and of light :
Then, then would I keep thee, my beautiful child,
With thy blue eyes unshadowed, thy blush unde-
filed—
With thy innocence only to guard thee from ill,
In life's sunny dawning, a lily-bud still !
Laugh on, my own Ellen ! that voice, which to mo
Gives a warning so solemn, makes music for thee
And while I at those sounds feel the idler's annoy,
Thou hear'st but the tick of the pretty gold toy ;
Thou seest but a smile on the brow of the churl-
May his frown never awe thee, my own baby-girl.
And oh, may his step, as he wanders with thee,
Light and soft as thine own little fairy tread be !
While still in all seasons, in storms and fair weather.
May Time and my Ellen be playmates together.
FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
277
LABOR.
PATS:-: not to dream of the future before us:
Pause not to weep the wild cares that come o'er us;
Hark, how Creation's deep, musical chorus,
Unintermitting, goes up into Heaven !
Never the ocean-wave falters in flowing;
Never the little seed stops in its growing ;
More and more richly the Rosehcart keeps glowing,
Ti 1 from its nourishing stem it is riven.
" Labor is worship !" — the robin is singing :
" Labor is worship !" — the wild bee is ringing :
Listen ! that eloquent whisper upspringing
Speaks to thy soul from out nature's great heart.
From the dark cloud flows the life-giving shower;
From the rough sod blows the soft breathing flower ;
From the small insect, the rich coral bower ;
Only man, in the plan, shrinks from his part.
Labor is life ! — 'T is the still water faileth;
Idleness ever despaireth, bewaileth ;
Keep the watch wound, for the dark rust assaileth !
Flowers droop and die in the stillness of noon.
Labor is gory ! — the flying cloud lightens;
On y the waving wing changes and brightens ;
Idle hearts only the dark future frightens : [tune !
Play the sweet keys, wouldst thou keep them in
Labor is rest — from the sorrows that greet us ;
Rest from all petty vexations that meet us,
Rest from sin-promptings that ever entreat us,
Rest from world-syrens that lure us to ill.
Work — and pure slumbers shall wait on thy pillow ;
Work — thou shalt ride over Care's coming billow;
Lie not down wearied 'neath Wo's weeping willow !
Work with a stout heart and resolute will !
Labor is health — Lo ! the husbandman reaping,
How through his veins goes the life-current leaping !
How his strong arm in its stalwart pride sweeping,
True as a sunbeam the swift sickle guides.
Labor is wealth — in the sea the pearl groweth ;
Rich the queen's robe from the frail cocoon floweth ;
From the fine acorn the strong forest bloweth ;
Temple and statue the marble block hides.
Droop not tho'shame,sin and anguish are round thee!
Bravely fliiTg off the cold chain that hath bound thee !
Look to yon pure heaven smiling beyond thee :
Rest not content in thy darkness — a clod !
Work — for some good, be it ever so slowly ;
Cherish some flower, be it ever so lowly :
Labor ! — all labor is noble and holy :
Let thy great deeds be thy prayer to thy God.
GARDEN GOSSIP,
ACCOUNTING FOR THE COOLNESS BETWEEN THE
LILY AND VIOLET.
"T WILL tell you a secret," the honeybee said,
To a violet drooping her dew-laden head ;
" The lily 's in love ! for she listened last night,
While her sisters all slept in the holy moonlight,
To a zephyr that just had been rocking the rose,
Where, hidden, I hearkened in seeming repose.
'' I would not betray her to any but you ;
But the secret is safe with a spirit so true — •
It will rest in your bosom in silence profound."
The violet bent her blue eye to the ground :
A tear and a smile in her loving look lav, .
While the light-wingt'd gossip went whirring away.
" I will tell you a secret," the honeybee said,
And the young lily lifted her beautiful head
" The vio'et thinks, with her timid blue eye,
To pass for a blossom enchantingly shy ;
But for all her sweet manners, so modest and pure,
She gossips with every gay bird that sings to her.
" Now let me advise you, sweet flower, as a frieru1.,
Oh, ne'er to such beings your confidence lend ;
It grieves me to see one, all guileless like you,
Thus wronging a spirit so trustful and true :
But not for the world, love, my secret betray !"
And the little light gossip went buzzing away.
A blush in the li'y's cheek trembled and fled :
" I'm sorry he told me," she tenderly said ;
'If T mayn't trust the vio'et. pure as she seems,
I must fold in my own heart my beautiful dreams."
Was the mischief well managed ! fair lady is't true!
Did the light garden gossip take lessons of you, !
TO A FRIEND.
OH, no ! never deem her less worthy of love,
That once she has trusted, and trusted in vain !
Could you turn from the timid and innocent dove,
If it flew to your breast from a savage's chain ]
She, too, is a dove, in her guileless affection,
A child in confiding and worshipping truth ;
Half broken in heart, she has flown for protection
To you : will you chill the sweet promise of youth 1
To a being so fragile, affection is life :
A rosebud, unblessed by a smile from above,
Wrhen with bloom and with fragrance its bosom is
rife —
A bee without sweets — she must perish or love !
You have heard of those magical circles of flowers,
Which in places laid waste by the lightning are
found ;
Where they say that the fairies have charmed the
night bouts.
With their luminous footsteps enriching the
ground.
Believe me — the passion she^ cherished of yore,
That brought, like the storm-flash, at once on its
wing
Destruction and splendor, like that hurried o'er,
And left in its track but the wild fairy-ring-
All rife with fair blossoms of fancy, and feeling.
And hope, that spring forth from the desolate
gloom.
And whose breath in rich incense is softly up
Btea'ing,
To brighten your pathway with beauty and bloom.
FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
KUllYDICE.
WITH heart that thri led to every earnest line,
I had been reading o'er that antique story,
Wherein tin- youth halt' human, half divine,
Of a 1 love-lore the Kidolun and jjory,
Child of tlie Sun, with Music's pleading spell,
[n Pluto's palace swept, for love, his golden shell !
And in the wi.'d, sweet legend, dimly traced,
My own heart's history unfo ded seemed:
Ah, lost one ! by thy iover-min.strel graced
With homage pure as ever woman dreamed,
Too fondly worshipped, since such fate befell,
Was it not sweet to die-— because beloved too well ?
The scene is round me. — Throned amid the gloom,
As a flower smiles on ^Etna's fatal breast,
Young Proserpine beside her lord doth bloom;
And near — of Orpheus' soul, oh, idol blest! —
Whi e low for thec he tunes his lyre of light,
I see thy meek, fair form dawn through that lurid
night !
I see the glorious buy — his dark locks wreathing
Wildly the wan and spiritual brow ;
His sweet, curved lip the soul of music breathing ;
His blue Greek eyes, that speak Love's loyal vo w ;
I see him bend on thee that eloquent glance,
The while those wondrous notes the realm of terror
trance.
I see his face, with more than mortal heauty
Kindling, as, armed with that sweet lyre alone,
Pledged to a holy and heroic duty,
He stands serene before the awful throne,
And looks on Hades' horrors with c'ear eyes,
Since thou, his own adored Eurydice, art nigh !
Now soft and low a prelude sweet uprings,
As if a prisoned ange! — pleading there
For life and love — were fettered 'neath the strings,
And poured his passionate soul upon the air!
Anon it clangs with wild, exultant swell,
Till the full pajan peals triumphantly through hell !
And thou, thy pa1 e hands meekly lock'd before thee,
Thy sa«l eves drinking life from his dear gaze
Thy lips apart— thy hair a halo o'er thee,
Trailing around thy throat its golden maze
Thus, with all words in passionate silence dying,
Within thy soul I hear Love's eager voice replying :
" Play on, mine Orpheus ! Lo ! while these are
gazing,
Charmed into statues hy thy God-taught strain,
I — I alone, to thy dear face upraising
My tearful glance, the life of life regain ;
For every tone that steals into my heart
Doth to its worn, weak pulse a mighty power impart.
Play on, mine Orpheus ! while thy music floats
Through the dread realm, divine with truth and
grace,
See, dear one, how the chain of linked notes
Mas fettered every spirit in its place !
Even Death, beside rue, still and helpless lies;
AJK! strives in vain to chill my frame with his cold
I Still, mine own Orpheus, sweep the golden lyre
Ah ! dost thou mark how gent'e Proserpine,
With clasp d hands, and eyes whose azure fire
G. earns through quick tears, thrilled hy thy lay
doth lean
Her graceful head upon her stern lord's hreast,
Like an overwearied child, whom music lulls to rest ?
Play, my proud minstrel ; strike the chords again ;
Lo ! victory crowns at last thy heavenly skill :
For Pluto turns relenting to the strain —
He waves his hand — he speaks his awful will ;
My glorious Greek, lead on; but ah ! still lend
Thy soul to thy sweet lyre, lest yet thou lose thy
friend.
Think not of me : think rather of the time,
When moved by thy resistless melody,
To the strange magic of a song sublime,
Thy argo grandly glided to the sea ;
And in the majesty Minerva gave,
The graceful gaLey swept with joy the sounding
wave.
Or see, in Fancy's dream, thy Thracian trees,
Their proud heads bent submissive to the sound.
Swayed by a tuneful and enchanted breeze,
March to slow music o'er th' astonished ground —
Grove after grove descending from the hills,
While round thee weave their dance the glad, har
monious rills.
Think not of me. Ha ! hy thy mighty sire.
My lord, my king, recall the dread behest ;
Turn not — ah ! turn not hack those eyes of fire.
Oh, lost, for ever lost — undone — unblest —
I faint, I die ! the serpent's fang once more
Is here ! Nay, grieve not thus : life but not love
LADY JANE.
On ! saw ye e'er creature so queenly, so fine,
As this dainty, aerial darling of mine ;
With a toss of her mane that is glossy as jet,
With a dance and a prance, and a sportive curvet,
She is off — she is stepping superbly away,
Her dark, speaking eyes full of pride and of play.
Oh! she spurns the dull earth with a graceful disdain,
My fearless, my peerless, my loved Lady Jane.
Her silken ears lifted when danger is nigh,
How kindles the night in her reso'.ute eye;
Now stately she paces, as if to the sound
Of a proud, martial melody pealing around —
Now pauses at once, mid a light caracole,
To turn on her master a lo:>k full of soul —
Now, fleet as a fairy, she speeds o'er the plain,
My dashing, my darling, my own Lady Jane.
Give her rein — let her go ! like a shaft from the bow
Like a bird on the wing she is glancing, I trow,
Light of heart, lithe of limb, with a spirit all fire,
Yet swayed and subdued to my idlest desire ;
Though daring, yet docile — and sportive, but true,
Her nature's the noblest that ever I knew :
Oh ! she scorns the dull earth, in her joyous disdain,
My beauty, my glory, my gay Lady Jane '
FRANCES S. OSGOOB.
279
IDA'S FAREWELL.
« WE part for ever !" Silent be our parting ;
Let not a word its sacred grief profane !
Heart pressed to heart, with not a tear upstarting —
An age of anguish in that moment's pain !
'T is just and right. It is our " crown of sorrow ;"
Bravely we'll meet it as becomes our love —
A love so strong, so pure, it well may borrow
Bright wings to waft it to the joy above.
We part for ever ! — o'er my soul in sadness
No more the music of thy voice shall glide
Low with deep feeling, till a passionate gladness
Thrilled to each tone, and in wild tears replied.
No more thy light caressing touch shall calm me,
With its dear magic on my lifted brow ;
No more thy pen of lire shall pour to charm me,
The poet-passion of thy fervent vow !
We part for ever ! Proud shall be the story
Of hearts that hid affection fond as ours —
The joy that veiled the universe in glory
Fades with thy presence from her skies and flowers.
The soul that answered, like the sun-touched lyre,
To thy dear smile — to every tone of thine,
Henceforth is hushed, with all its faith— its fire,
Till thou rewaken it in realms divine !
We part for ever ! Ah, this world's for ever —
What is its fleetness unto hearts so strong ]
Here in our worldless agony we sever :
There we shall meet where love will be no wrong.
"In paradise !" Dost thou e'er dream as I, love,
Of that sweet life when all the truth — the grace —
All the soft melodies, in our souls that sigh, love,
Shall make the light and beauty of the place 1
We meet for ever ! Tenderly lamenting
The wild dear weakness of our earthly day,
Beneath the passionate tears of that repenting,
What luminous flowers shall spring to bless our
way !
And for all tuneful tones our love revealing,
Some bird or rill shall wake in sweet reply ;
And every sigh of pity or of feeling
Shall call a cloud of rose-light from the sky.
To thy rare, gorgeous fantasies responding,
Rich palaces, mid wondrous scenes shall rise ;
To thy proud harp's impassioned tones resounding,
The minstrel wind shall play its wild replies.
Visions of unimagined grace and splendor,
For ever changing round thy rapturous way, [der,
Now beauteous sculpture bathed in moonlight ten-
Now radiant paintings to thy wish shall play.
But I will speak a fair bower into being,
With tender, timid, wistful words and low,
And tune my soul — until, with Heaven agreeing,
It chords with music to which blossoms grow.
And they — the flowers, anJ I will pray together,
While thou, for" Love's sweet sake, sha 1 join the
prayer,
Ti 1 all sweet influences of balmy weather
And lovely scenery make us good and fair.
And ever to our purer aspirationsy
A lovelier light and bloom the- flowers sha'l take;
With rarer grace shall glow our soul's creations.
With mellower music every echo wake.
" We meet in paradise !" To hallowed duty,
Here with a loyal and heroic heart,
Bind we our lives — that so divinest beauty [part
May bless that heaven, where naught our souls can
TO A DEAR LITTLE TRUANT,
WHO WOULDN'T COME HO.MK.
WHEX are you coming] the flowers have come:
Bees in the balmy air happily hum ;
In the dim woods where the cool mosses are,
Gleams the anemone's little, light star ;
Tenderly, timidly, down in the dell,
Sighs the sweet violet, droops the harebell ;
Soil in the wavy grass lightens the dew ;
Spring keeps her promises: why do not you?
Up in the blue air the clouds are at play —
You are more graceful and lovely than they ;
Birds in the branches sing all the day long,
When are you coming to join in their scng ]
Fairer than flowers, and fresher than dew !
Other sweetenings are here — why are not you?
Why do n't you come ] we have welcomed the rose \
Every light zephyr, as gayly it goes,
Whispers of other flowers, met on its way :
Why has it nothing of you, love, to say 1
Why does it tell us of music and dew !
Rose of the south, we are waiting for you.
Do not delay, darling, mid the dark trees,
Like a lute murmurs the musical breeze ;
Sometimes the brook, as it trips by the flowers,
Hushes its warb'e to listen for yours.
Pure as the rivulet, lovely and true —
Spring should have waited till she could bring you
THE UNEXPECTED DECLARATION.
" AZURE-EYED Eloise, beauty is thine,
Passion kneels to thee, and calls thee divine ;
Minstrels awaken the lute with thy name ;
Poets have gladdened the world with thy fame
Painters, half holy, thy loved image keep ,
Beautiful Eloise, why do you weep]"
Still bows the lady her light tresses low —
Fast the warm tears from her veiled eyes flow.
" Sunny-haired Eloise, wealth is tnine own ;
Rich is thy silken robe — bright is thy zone ;
Proudly the jewel illumines thy way ;
Clear rubies rival thy ruddy lip's play ;
Diamonds like stardrops thy si ken braids deck ;
Pearls waste their snow on thy lovelier neck;
Luxury softens thy pillow for slccj. ;
Angels watch over it : why do you weep !"
Bows the fair lady her light tresses low —
Faster the tears from her veiled eyes flow
" Gifted and worshipped one, genius and gr;ic*«
Play in each motion, and *>eam in thy face:
When from thy rosy lip rises the song,
Hearts that adore thee the echo prolong ;
2SO
FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
Ne'er in the festival shone an eye brighter,
Ne'er in the mazy dance fell a foot lighter.
One only spirit thou'st failed to bring down •
Exquisite Eloise, why do you frown ]"
Swift o'er her forehead a dark shadow stole,
Sent from the tempest of pride in her soul.
' Touched by thy sweetness, in love with thy grace,
Charmed by the magic of mind in thy face,
Bi-witched by thy beauty, e'en his haughty strength,
The strength of the stoic, is conquered at length :
Lo ! at thy feet — see him kneeling the while —
Eioise, Eloise, why do you smi.e 1"
The hand was withdrawn from her happy blue eyes,
She gazed en her lover with laughing surprise ;
While the dimple and blush, stealing soft to her
cheek,
Told the tale that her tongue was too timid to speak.
STANZAS FOR MUSIC.
BELIEVE me, 'tis no pang of jealous pride
That brings these tears I know not how to hide ;
I only grieve because — because — I see
Thou lind'st not all thy heart demands in me.
I only grieve that others, who care less
For thy dear love, thy lightest wish may bless ;
Tnat while to them thou'rt nothing — all to me —
They may a moment minister to thee !
Ah ! if a fairy's magic might were mine,
I 'd joy to change with each new wish of thine ;
Nothing to all the world beside I'd be,
And everything thou lovest, in turn to thee !
Pliant as clouds, that haunt the sun-god still,
['d catch each ray of thy prismatic will;
I 'd be a flower — a wild, sweet flower I 'd be —
And sigh my verv life away for thee !
I'd be a ge:n, and drink light from the sun,
To glad thee with, if gems thy fancy won ;
Were birds thy joy, I'd light with docile glee
Upon thy hand, and shut my wings for thee !
Could a wild wave thy glance of pleasure meet,
I'd lay my crown of spray-prarls at thy feet;
Or could a star delight thy heart, I'd be
The happiest star that ever looked on thee !
If music lured thy spirit, I would take
A tune's a 'rial beauty for thy sake;
And float into thy soul, so I could see
How to become all melody to thee.
The weed, that by the garden blossom grows,
Would, if it could, be glorious as the rose :
It tries to bloom — its soul to light aspires ;
The love of beauty every fibre fires.
And I -no luminous c'oud floats by above,
But wins at once my envy and my love —
So passionately wild this thirst in me,
Tc be a' I beauty and all grace to thee !
A'as! I am but woman, fond and weak,
Without even power my proud, pure love to speak ;
But oh ! by all I fail in, love n >t me
For what i am, but what I wish to be !
THE FLOWER LOVE-LETTER.
B'.USHIXG and smiling! do ye so,
Delicious flowers, because you know
To whose dear heart you soon shall go ?
Ah, give my message well and true,
And such a smile shall guerdon you !
His smile within whose luminous glow,
As in the sun, you ought to grow !
Rose ! tell him — what /dared not tell,
When last we met — how wildly well
I love him — how my glad heart glows,
Recalling every word he spake,
(Remember that, thou radiant Rose !)
In that sweet bower beside the lake.
Be sure you blush and speak full low,
Else you'll seem over bo'd I trow;
Then hide you thus, with winsome grace,
Behind those leaves — your glowing face ;
But through them send a perfumed sigh,
That to his very heart sha 1 fly.
And thou, my fragrant Lotos-flower,
\Vith balmy whisper seek his bower,
And say, " Zuleika sends in me
A spirit kiss — a seal — to bind
Thy favored lips to secrecy ;
Oh, hide the heart she has resigned,
Nor let the world, with jibe or scorn,
Cloud her young Love's effu'gent morn."
Then, Lily, shrink in silence meek,
And let my glorious Tulip speak !
And speak thou, bright one, brave and bold,
Lest my Rose show me over weak ;
W'ith stately grace around thee fold
Thy royal robe of g' earning gold,
And tell him I, the Emir's child —
With frame so slight, and heart so wild,
Still treasure, 'neath this gemmed cymar,
Proud honor's gem — a stainless star,
And pure as Heaven, his soul must be,
And true as Truth, who'd mate with me.
And if he answer — as he will —
My faith on that — " I seek her still,"
Then do thou ring, my blue-bell flower,
Thy joyous peal, and softly say,
" Oh, wreathe with bridal bloom the bower !
For by to-morrow's earliest ray,
From tyrant's cage — a bird set free,
Zuleika flies — and flies to thee !"
But if you mark, in those proud eyes,
A shade — the least — of scorn arise,
Or even doubt, the faintest hue — •
Ah, Heaven ! you will not ! — if you do,
Shrink, wither, perish, in his sight,
And murmur, ere you perish quite,
" 'T is we — the flower-sylphs — here we dwell,
Each in her own light painted cell —
'Tis we who made this idle tale !
At us — at us — oh, false one, rail !
The Emir's child would rather die,
Than breathe for thee — one burning sigh ;
She scorns thy suit and bids us say,
The eaglet holds, alone, her way"-
Then wither, perish in his suht,
And leave me to my starless night !
FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
281
A WEED.
WHKX from our northern woods pale sum mer,fly ing,
Breathes her lastfragrant sigh — her low farewell —
While her sad wild flowers' dewy eyes, in dying,
Plead for her stay, in every nook and dell,
A heart, that loved too tenderly and truly,
Will break at last — and in some dim, sweet shade,
They' 11 smooth the sod o'er her you prized unduly,
And leave her to the rest for which she prayed.
Ah ! trustfully, not mournfully, they '11 leave her,
Assured that deep repose is welcomed well ;
The pure, glad breeze can whisper naught to grieve
her,
The brook's low voice no wrongful tale can tell.
They'll hide her where no false one's footstep, steal
ing,
Can mar the chastened meekness of her sleep ;
t)nly to Love and Grief her grave revea ing,
And they will hush their chiding- then — to weep !
And some — for though too oft she erred, too blindly,
She was beloved, how fondly and how well ! —
Some few, with faltering feet, will linger kindly,
And plant dear flowers within that silent dell.
I know whose fragile hand will bring the bloom
Best loved by both — the violet — to that bower ;
And one will bid white lilies bless the gloom ;
And one, perchance, will plant the passion-flower !
Then do thou come, when all the rest have parted —
Thou, who alone dost know her soul's deep gloom,
And wreathe above the lost, the broken-hearted,
Some idle weed — that knew not how to bloom.
TO SLEEP.
E to me, angel of the weary hearted,
Since they my loved ones, breathed upon by thee,
Unto thy realms unreal have departed,
I, too, may rest — even I : ah ! haste to me.
I dare not bid thy darker, colder brother
With his more welcome offering appear,
For those sweet li ps, at m orn,wil 1 m urmur,' Mother,'
And who shall soothe them if I be not near.
Bring me no dream, dear Sleep, though visions
glowing
With hues of heaven thy wand enchanted shows ;
I ask no glorious boon of thy bestowing,
Save that most true, most beautiful — repose.
I have no heart to rove in realms of Faery —
To folow Fancy at her elfin call :
I am too wretched — too soul-worn and weary ;
Give me but rest, for rest to me is all.
Paint not the future to my fainting spirit,
Though it were starred with glory like the skies;
There is no gift immortals may inherit,
That could rekindle hope in these cold eyes.
And for the Past— the fearful Past— ah ! never
Be Memory's downcast gaze unveiled by thee :
Wou'd thou couldst bring oblivion for ever
Of all that is, that has been, and will be !
SILENT LOVE.
AH ! let our love be still a folded flower,
A pure, moss rosebud, blushing to be seen,
Hoarding its balm and beauty for that hour
When souls may meet without the clay between !
Let not a breath of passion dare to blow
Its tender, timid, clinging leaves apart;
Let not the sunbeam, with too ardent glow,
Profane the dewy freshness at its heart !
Ah ! keep it folded like a sacred thing — [nurse;
With tears and smiles its bloom and fragrance
Still let the modest veil around it cling,
Nor with rude touch its pleading sweetness curse.
Be thou content, as I, to know, not see,
The glowing life, the treasured wealth within —
To feel our spirit flower still fresh and free,
And guard its blush, its smile, from shame and sin !
Ah, keep it holy ! once the veil withdrawn —
Once the rose blooms — its balmy soul will fly,
As fled of old in sadness, yet in scorn,
Th' awakened god from Psyche's daring eye .
BEAUTY'S PRAYER.
ROUND great Jove his lightnings shone,
Rolled the universe before him,
Stars, for gems, lit up his throne,
Clouds, for banners, floated o'er him.
With her tresses all untied,
Touched with gleams of golden glory,
Beauty came, and blushed, and sighed,
While she told her piteous story.
" Hear ! oh, Jupiter ! thy child :
Right my wrong, if thou dost love me !
Beast and bird, and savage wild,
All are placed in power above me.
" Each his weapon thou hast given,
Each the strength and skill to wield it :
Why bestow — Supreme in heaven !
Bloom on me with naught to shield it 1
"Even the rose — the wild-wood rose,
Fair and frail as I, thy daughter,
Safely yields to soft repose,
With her lifeguard thorns about her."
As she spake in music wild,
Tears within her blue eyes glistened,
Yet her red lip dimpling smiled,
For the god benignly listened.
•' Child of Heaven !" he kindly said,
" Try the weapons Nature gave thee i
And if danger near thee tread,
Proudly trust to them to save thee.
" Lance and talon, thorn and spear :
Thou art armed with triple power,
In that blush, and smile, and tear!
Fearless go, my fragile flower.
" Yet dost thou, with all thy charmts,
Still for something more beseech mo 7-
Skill to use thy magic arms ?
Ask of Love — and Love wul teach thee J
292
FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
DREAM-MUSIC, OR THE SPIRIT-FLUTE.
TnfcRE, pearl of beauty ! lightly press,
With yielding form, the yielding sand;
And whi e you sift the rosy shells
Within your dear and dainty hand,
Or toss them to the heedless waves,
That reck not how your treasures shine,
As oft you waste on careless hearts
Your fancies, touched with light divine —
I'll sing a lay, more wild than gay —
The story of a magic flute :
And as I sing, the waves shall play
An ordered tune, the song to suit.
In silence flowed our grand old Rhine —
For on his breast a picture burned,
The loveliest of all scenes that shine,
Where'er his glorious course has turned.
That radiant morn the peasants saw
A wondrous vision rise in light,
They gazed, with blended joy and awe —
A castle crowned the beetling height.
Far up amid the amber mist,
That softly wreathes each mountain-spire,
The sky its clustered columns kissed,
And touched their snow with golden fire :
The vapor parts — against the skies,
In delicate tracery on the blue,-
Those graceful turrets lightly rise,
As if to music there they grew !
And issuing from its portal fair,
A youth descends the dizzy steeps ;
The sunrise gilds his waving hair,
From rock to rock he lightly leaps :
He comes — the radiant angel boy !
He moves with more than human grace;
His eyes are filled with earnest joy,
And heaven is in his beauteous face.
And whether bred the stars among,
Or in that luminous palace born,
Around his airy footsteps hung
The light of an immortal morn.
From steep to steep he fearless springs,
And now he glides the throng amid,
So light, as if still played the wings
That 'neath his tunic sure are hid.
A fairy flute is in his hand —
He parts his bright, disordered hair,
And smiles upon the wondering band —
A strange, sweet smile, with tranquil air.
Anon, his blue, celestial eyes
He bent upon a youthful maid,
Whose looks met his in still surprise,
The while a low, glad tune he played.
Her heart beat wildly — in her face
The lovely rose-light went and came ;
She clasped her hands with timid grace,
In mute appeal, in joy and shame.
Then slow he turned — more wildly breathed
The pleading flute, and by the sound
Through all the throng her steps she wreathed,
As. if a chain were o'er her wound.
All mute and still the group remained,
Arid watched the chann, with lips apart.
While in those linked nuies enchained,
The girl was led, with listening heart.
The youth ascends the rocks again,
And in his steps the maiden stole,
While softer, ho'ier grew the strain,
Till rapture thrilled her yearning soul !
And fainter fe'l that fairy tune;
Its low, melodious cadence wound,
Most like a rippling rill at noon,
Through delicate lights and shades of sound:
And with the music, gliding slow,
Far up the steep their garments gleam ;
Now through the palace-gate they go,
And now — it vanished like a dream !
Still frowns above thy waves, oh Rhine !
The mountain's wild terrific height,
But where has fled the work divine
That lent its brow a halo light 1
Ah ! springing arch and pillar pale
Had melted in the azure air;
And she — the darling of the dale —
She too had gone — but how, and where 1 .....
Long years rolled by, and lo ! one morn,
Again o'er regal Rhine it came —
That picture from the dream-land borne,
That palace built of frost and flame.
Beho'd ! within its portal gleams
A heavenly shape — oh, rapturous sight !
For lovely as the light of dreamy
She g.ides adown the mountain height !
She comes — the loved, the long-lost maid !
And in her hand the charm d flute;
But ere its mystic tune was played,
She spake — the peasants listened mute :
She told how in that instrument
Was chained a world of winged dreams;
And how the notes that from it went
Revealed them as with lightning gleams —
And how its music's magic braid
O'er the unwary heart it threw,
Till he or she whose dream it played
Was forced to follow where it drew.
She to'd how on that marvellous day
Within its changing tune she heard
A forest fountain's plaintive play,
A silver trill from far-off bird —
And how the sweet tones, in her heart,
Had changed to promises as sweet,
That if she dared with them depart,
Each lovely hope its heaven should meet.
And then she played a joyous lay,
And to her side a fair child springs,
And wildly cries, " Oh, where are they,
Those singing birds, with diamond wings'?**
Anon a loftier strain is heard —
A princely youth beholds his dream,
FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
And, by the thrilling cadence stirred,
Would follow where its wonders gleam.
Still played the maid — and from the throng,
Receding slow, the music drew
A choice and lovely band along —
The brave, the beautiful, the true !
The sordid, worldly, cold, remained,
To watch that radiant troop ascend —
To hear the fading fairy strain —
To see with heaven the vision blend !
And ne'er again, o'er glorious Rhine,
That sculptured dream rose calm and mute ;
Ah, would that now once more 'twould shine,
And I could play the fairy flute !
I'd play, Marie, the dream I see,
Deep in those changeful eyes of thine,
And thou perforce shouldst follow me
Up — up where life is all divine !
TO MY PEN.
DOST know, my iittle vagrant pen,
That wanderest lightly down the paper,
Without a thought how critic men
May carp at every careless caper 1
Dost know, twice twenty thousand eyes,
If publishers report them tru'y,
Each month may mark the sportive lies
That track, oh shame ! thy steps unruly 1
Now list to me, my fairy pen,
And con the lessons gravely over ;
Be never wild or false again,
But " mind your Ps and Qs," you rover !
While tripping gayly to and fro.
Let not a thought escape you lightly,
But challenge all before they go,
And see them fairly robed and rightly.
You know that words but dress the frame,
And thought's the soul of verse, my fairy !
So drape not spirits dull and tame
In gorgeous robes or garments airy.
[ would not have my pen pursue
The " beaten track" — a slave for ever ;
No ! roam as thou wert wont to do,
In author-land, by rock and river.
Be like the sunbeam's burning wing,
Be like the wand in Cinderella —
And if you touch a common thing,
Ah, change to gold the pumpkin yellow !
May grace come fluttering round your steps,
WThene'er, my bird, you light on paper,
And music murmur at your lips,
And truth restrain each truant caper.
Let hope paint pictures in your way,
And love his seraph-lesson teach you ;
And rather calm with reason stray,
Than dance with folly — I beseech you !
fn Faith's pure fountain lave your wing,
And quaff from feeling's glowing chalice
But touch not falsehood's fatal spring,
And shun the poisoned weeds of malice.
Firm be the web you lightly spin,
From leaf to leaf, though frail in seeming,
While Fancy's fairy dew-gems win
The sunbeam Truth to keep them gleaming,
And shrink not thou when tyrant wrong
O'er humble suffering dares deride thee :
With lightning step and c'arion song,
Go ! take the field, with Heaven beside thee.
Be tuned to tenderest music when
Of sin and shame thou'rt sadly singing;
But diamond be thy point, my pen,
When folly's bells are round thee ringing !
And so, where'er you stay your flight,
To plume your wing or dance your measure,
May gems and flowers your pathway light,
For those who track your tread, my treasure !
But what is this 1 you've tripped about,
While I the mentor grave was playing;
And here you've written boldly out
The very words that I was saying !
And here, as usual, on you've flown
From right to left — flown fast and faster,
Till even while you wrote it down,
You've missed the task you ought to master,
NEW ENGLAND'S MOUNTAIN CHILD.
WHEUK foams the fall — a tameless storm —
Through Nature's wild and rich arcade,
Which forest trees, entwining, form,
There trips the mountain maid.
She binds not her luxuriant hair
With dazz'ing gem or costly plume,
But gayly wreathes a rosebud there,
To match her maiden bloom.
She clasps no golden zone of pride
Her fair and simple robe around;
By flowing riband, lightly tied,
Its graceful folds are bound.
And thus attired— a sportive thing,
Pure, loving, guileless, bright, and wild-
Proud Fashion ! match me in your ring,
New England's mountain child !
She scorns to se'l her rich, warm heart
For paltry gold or haughty rank,
But gives her love, untaught by art,
Confiding, free, and frank.
And, once bestowed, no fortune change
That high and generous faith can alter;
Through grief and pain, too pure to range,
She will not fly or falter.
Her foot will bound as light and free
In lowly hut as palace hall;
Her sunny smile as warm will be,
For love to her is all.
Hast seen where in our woodland gloon;
The rich magnolia proudly smiled 1 —
So brightly doth she bud and bloom,
New England's mountain child !
284
FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
"ASHES OF ROSES."
that God would take my child —
I could not bear to see
The look of suffering, str.mge -ind wild,
With which she gazed on me :
I prayed that God would take her back,
But ah ! f did not know
VVli.it agony at last 'twould be
To let my darling go.
She fa-led — faded in my arms,
And with a faint, slow sigh,
Her fair young spirit went away.
Ah God ! I felt her die !
But oh ! so lightly to her form
Death's kindly angel came,
It only seemed a zephyr passed
And quenched — a taper's flame;
A litt'e flower might so have died —
So tranquilly she closed
Her lovelv mouth, and on my breast
Her helpless head reposed.
Where'er I go, I hear her low
And plaintive murmur ring ;
I feel her little fairy clasp
Around my finger cling,
For oh ! it seemed the darling dreamed,
That while she clung to me,
Safe from all harm of Death or pain
She could not help but be,
That I, who watched in helpless grief,
My flower fade away,
That I — ah, Heaven ! — had life arid strength
To keep her from decay !
She clung there to the very last —
I knew that all was o'er,
Only because that dear, dear hand,
Could press mine own no more.
Oh God ! give back, give back my child !
But one, one hour, that I
May tell her all my passionate love
Before I let her die !
Call not the prayer an impious one,
For THOU didst fill my soul
With this fond, yearning tenderness,
That nothing can control !
But say instead, " Beside thy bed
Thy child's sweet spirit glides,
For pitying Love has heard the prayer
Which heavenly wisdom chides !"
I know, I know that she is blest :
But oh ! I pine to see
Once more the pretty, pleading smile
She used to give to me ;
I pine to hear that low, sweet trill
With which, where'er I came,
H«r little, soft voice welcomed me,
Half welcome and half blame !
I know her little heart is glad —
Some gentle angel guides
My loved one on her joyous way,
VVVjrc'er in heaven she glides,
Some angel far more wisely kind
Than ever I could be,
With all my blind, wild mother-love,
My Fanny, tends on thee ;
And every sweet want of thy heart
Her care benign fulfils,
And every whispered wish for me,
W'ith lulling love she stills.
Upborne by its own purity,
Thy light form floats away,
And heaven's fair children round it throng,
And woo thee to their play,
Where flowers of wondrous beauty rise,
And birds of splendor rare,
And balm and bloom and melody
Divinely fill the air.
I hush my heart, I hide my teais,
Lest he my grief should guess
Wlio watched thee, darling, day and night,
With patient tenderness ;
'T would grieve his generous soul to see
This anguish, wild and vain,
And he would deem it sin in me
To wish thee back again ;
But oh ! when I am all alone,
I can not calm my grief,
I think of all thy touching ways
And find a sweet relief:
Thv dark blue, wishful eyes look up
Once more into my own,
Thy faint soft smile one moment plays —
One moment thrills thy tone :
The next — the vision vanishes,
And all is still and cold ;
I see thy little, tender form —
Oh misery ! in the mould !
I shut my eyes, and pitying Heaven
A happier vision gives,
Thy spirit dawns upon rny dream —
I know my treasure lives.
No, no, I must not wish thee back,
But might I go to thee !
Were there no other loved ones here
Who need my love and me ;
I am so weary of the world- —
Its falsehood and its strife —
So weary of the wrong and ruth
That mar our human life !
Where thou art. Fanny, all is love
And peace and pure delight ;
The soul that here must hide its face,
There lives serene in right ;
And ever, in its lovely path,
Some new, great truth divine,
Like a clear star that dawns in heaven,
Undyingly doth shine.
My child, while joy and wisdom go
Through that calm sphere with thee,
Oh, wilt thou not sometimes look back,
My pining heart to see ?
For now a strange fear chills my soul —
A feeling like despair,
Lest thou forget me mid those scenes —
Thou dost not need me there !
FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
285
Ah, no : the spirit-love, that looked
From those dear eyes of thine,
Was not of earth — it could not die !
Tt stil! responds to mine !
And it may be — (how thrills the hope
Through all my soul again !) —
That I may tend my chid in heaven,
Since here my watch was vain !
•'YKS! LOWER TO THE LEVEL.
YES ! " lower to the level"
Of those who laud thee now;
Go, join the joyous revel,
And pledge the heartless vow ;
Go, dim the soulhorn beauty
That lights that lofty brow ;
Fil', fill the bowl : let burning wine
Drown, in thy soul, Love's dream divine.
Yet when the laugh is lightest,
When wildest goes the jest,
When gleams the goblet brightest,
And proudest heaves thy breast,
And thou art madly pledging
Each gay and jovial guest —
A ghost shall glide amid the flowers —
The shade of Love's departed hours.
And thou sha'.t shrink in sadness
From all the splendor there,
And curse the revel's gladness,
And hate the banquet's glare,
And pine, mid Passion's madness,
For true Love's purer air,
And feel thou 'dst give their wildest glee
For one unsul'ied sigh from me !
Yet deem not this my prayer, love :
Ah ! no ; if I could keep
Thy altered heart from care, love,
And charm its grief to sleep,
Mine only should despair, love,
I — I alone would weep !
I — I alone wou'd mourn the flowers
That fade in Love's deserted bowers !
THE SOUL'S LAMENT FOR HOME.
As 'plains the homesick ocean-shell
Far from its own remembered sea,
Repeating, like a fairy spell
Of love, the charm d melody
It learned within that whispering wave,
Whose wondrous and mysterious tone
Still wildly haunts its winding cave
Of pearl, with softest music-moan —
So asks my homesick soul below,
For something loved, yet undefined ;
So mourns to mingle with the flow
Of music, from the Eternal Mind ;
So murmurs, with its child-like sigh,
The melody it learned above,
To which no echo may reply,
Save from thy voice, Celestial Love !
BIANCA.
A WHISPEH woke the air,
A soft, light tone, and low,
Yet barbed with shame and wo.
Ah ! mi-rht it only perish there,
Nor farther go !
But no ! a quick and eager ear
Caught up the little, meaning sound —
Another voice has breathed it clear- —
And so it wandered round
From ear to lip, from lip to ear,
Until it reached a gentle heart
That throbbed from all the world apart,
And that — it broke !
It was the only heart it found —
The only heart 'twas meant to find,
When first its accents woke.
It reached that gentle heart at last,
And that — it broke !
Low as it seemed to other ears,
It came a thunder-crash to hers — •
That fragile girl, so fair and gay.
'Tis said, a lovely humming-bird,
That dreaming in a lily lay,
Was ki.led but by the gun's report
Some idle boy had fired in sport ;
So exquisitely frail its frame,
The very sound a death-blow came :
And thus her heart, unused to shame,
Shrined in its li;y, too —
(For who the maid that knew,
But owned the delicate, flower-like grace
Of her young form and face ])
Her light and happy heart, that beat
With love and hope so fast and sweet,
When first that cruel word it heard,
It fluttered like a frightened bird —
Then shut its wings and sighed,
And with a silent shudder died !
MUSIC.
THE Father spake ! In grand reverberations
Through space rolled on the mighty music-tide,
While to its low, majestic modulations,
The clouds of chaos slowly swept aside.
The Father spake — a dream, that had been lying
Hushed from eternity in silence there,
Heard the pure melody and low replying,
Grew to that music in the wondering an-
Grew to that music — slowly, grandly waking,
Till bathed in beauty — it became a world !
Led by his voice, its spheric pathway taking,
While glorious clouds their wings around it furled.
Nor yet has ceased that sound — his love revealing
Though, in response, a universe moves by !
Throughout eternity, its echo pealing —
World after world awakes in glad reply !
And wheresoever, in his rich creation,
Sweet music breathes — in wave, or bird, or soul — •
'Tis but the faint and for reverberation
Of that great tune to which the planets roll '
FRANCES S. OSGOOD.
"SHE LOVES HIM YET."
SHK loves him yet !
I know by the blush that rises
Beneath the curls
That shadow her soul-lit cheek :
She loves him yet !
Through all Love's sweet disguises
In timid girls,
A blush will be sure to speak.
But deeper signs
Than the radiant blush of beauty,
The maiden finds,
Whenever his name is heard
Her young heart thrills,
Forgetting herself — her duty ;
Her dark eye fills,
And her pulse with hope is stirred.
She loves him yet !
The flower the false one gave her,
When last he came,
Is still with her wild tears wet.
She'll nerer forget,
Howe'er his faith may waver,
Through grief and shame,
Believe it- -she loves him yet !
His favorite songs
She will sing — she heeds no other:
With all her wrongs
Her life on his love is set.
Oh, doubt no more !
She never can wed another :
Till life be o'er,
She loves — she will love him yet !
NO!
IF the dew have fed the flower,
Shall she therefore, from that hour,
Live on nothing else but dew 1
Ask no more, from dawn of day —
Never heed the sunny ray,
Though it come, a glittering fay,
To her bower ?
Though upon her soul it play,
Must she coldly turn away,
And refuse the life it brings,
Burning in its golden wings —
Meekly lingering in the night,
To herself untrue ?
Though the humming-bird have stole,
Floating on his plumes of glory,
Softly to her glowing soul,
Telling his impassioned story —
If the soaring lark she capture,
In diviner love and rapture,
Pouring music wild and clear,
Round her till she thrills to hear —
Shu'l she shut her spirit's ear 1
Shall the lesson wasted be,
Of that heavenly harmony 1
!Vo ! by all the inner bloom,
That the sunbeam may illume,
But that else the stealing chill
Of the early dawn might kill :
No ! by all the leaves of beauty,
Leaves that, in their vestal duty,
Guard the shrined and rosy light
Hidden in her "heart of heart,"
Till that music bids them part :
No ! by all the perfume rare,
Delicate as a fairy's sigh.
Shut within and wasting there,
That would else enchant the air —
Incense that must soar or die !
That divine, pure soul of flowers,
Captive held, that pines to fly,
Asking for unfading bowers,
Learning from the bird and ray
All the lore they bring away
From the skies in love and play,
Where they linger every morn,
Till to this sad world of ours
Day in golden pomp is borne —
By that soul, which else might glow
An immortal flower : No !
SONG.
SHOULD all who throng, with gift and song,
And for my favor bend, the knee,
Forsake the shrine they deem divine,
I would riot stoop my soul to thee !
The lips, that breathe the burning vow,
By falsehood base unstained must be;
The heart, to which mine own shall bow,
Must worship Honor more than me.
The monarch of a world wert thou,
And I a slave on bended knee,
Though tyrant chains my form might bow,
My soul should never stoop to thee !
LTntil its hour shall come, my heart
I will possess, serene and free ;
Though snared to ruin by thine art,
'T would sooner break than bend to thee !
"BOIS TON SANG, BEAUMANOIR."
Fi ETICE raged the combat — the foemen pressed nigh,
When from young Beaurnanoir rose the wild cry,
Beaumanoir, mid them all, bravest and first —
"Give me to drink, for I perish of thirst!"
Hark ! at his side., in the deep tones of ire,
" Bois ton SAXG, Beaumanoir!" shouted his sire.
Deep had it pierced him — the foemen's swift sword,
Deeper his soul felt the wound of that word :
Back to the battle, with forehead all flushed,
Stung to wild fury, the noble youth rushed !
Scorn in his dark eyes — his spirit on fire —
Deeds were his answer that dav to his sire.
Still where triumphant the you in hero came,,
Glory's bright garland encircled his name:
But in her bower, to beautv a slave,
Dearer the guerdon his lady-love gave,
While on his shield, that no shame had defaced,
" Bois ton sang, Beaumanoir !" proudly she traced.
FHANCES S. OSGOOD.
287
RKPHOVE me not that still I change
With every changing hour,
For glorious Nature gives me leave
In wave, and cloud, and flower.
And you and all the world would do — •
If a 1 but dared — the same ;
True to myself — if false to you,
Why should I reck your blame .
Then cease yojir carping, cousiu mine,
Your vain reproaches cease ;
I revel in my right divine —
I glory in caprice !
Yon soft, light cloud, at morning hour,
Looked dark and full of tears:
At noon it seemed a rosy flower —
Now, gorgeous gold appears.
So yield I to the deepening light
That dawns around my way :
Because you linger with the night,
Shall I my noon delay 1
No ! cease your carping, cousin mine —
Your co'.d reproaches cease ;
The chariot of the cloud be mine —
Take thou the reins, Caprice !
'Tis true you played on Feeling's lyre
A pleasant tune or two,
And oft beneath your minstrel fire
The hours in music flew ;
But when a hand more skilled to sweep
The harp, its soul allures,
Shu 1 it iu su ten silence sleep
Because not touched by yours 1
Oh, there are rapturous tones in mine
That mutely pray re ease;
They wait the master-hand divine —
So tune the chords, Caprice !
Go — strive the sea-wave to control ;
Or, wouldst thou keep me thine,
Be thou all being to my soul,
And fiJ each want divine :
Play every string in Love's sweet lyre —
Set all its music flowing ;
Be air, and dew, and light, and fire,
To keep the soul-flower growing :
Be less — thou art n > love of mine,
So leave my love in peace ;
'Tis helpless woman's right divine —
Her only right — caprice !
And I wiL mount her opal car,
Vnd draw the rainbow reins,
And gayly go from star to star,
Till not a ray remains ;
And we will find all fairy flowers
That are to morta's given,
And wreathe the radiant, changing hours,
With those " sweet hints" of heaven.
Her humming-birds are harness* I there —
Oh ! leave their wings in peace ;
Like " flying gems" they "lance in air —
We'll chase the light, Caprice !
SONG.
I IOVED an ideal — I sought it in thee;
I found it unreal as stars in the sea.
And shall I, disdaining an instinct divine —
By falsehood profaning that pure hope of mine —
Shall I stoop from my vision so lofty, so true —
From the light al. Eiysian that round me it threw 1
Oh ! guilt unforgiven, if false I could be
To myself and to Heaven, while constant to tliee
Ah no ! though all lonely on earth be my lot,
I '11 brave it, if only that trust fail rne not —
The trust that, in keeping all pure from control
The love that lies sleeping and dreams in my soul,
It may wake in some better and holier sphere,'
Unbound by the fetter Fate hung on it here.
ASPIRATIONS.
I WASTE no more in idle dreams
My life, my soul away ;
I wake to know my better self —
I wake to watch and pray.
Thought, feeling, time, on idols vain,
I've lavished all too long:
Henceforth to holier purposes
I pledge myself, my song !
Oh ! still within the inner veil,
Upon the spirit's shrine,
Still unprofaned by evil, burns
The one pure spark divine,
Which God has kindled in us all,
And be it mine to tend
Henceforth, with vestal thought and care,
The light that lamp may lend.
I shut mine eyes in grief and shame
Upon the dreary past —
My heart, my soul poured recklessly
On dreams that could not last :
My bark was drifted down the stream,
At will of wind or wave —
An idle, light, and fragile thing,
That few had cared to save.
Henceforth the tiller Truth shall hold,
And steer as Conscience tells,
And I will brave the storms of Fate,
Though wild the ocpan swells.
I know my sou! is strong and high,
If once I give it sway ;
I feel a glorious power within,
Though light I seem and gay.
Oh, laggard Soul ! unclose thine eyes*
No more in luxury soft
Of joy ideal waste thyself:
Awake, and soar aloft !
Unfurl this hour thase falcon wings
Which thou dost fold too long;
Raise to the skies thy lightning gaze.
And sing thy loftiest song ?
LUCY HOOPER
(Born 181&-Died 1841).
THFRE have been in our literary history
few more interesting characters than LUCY
HOOIM:R. She died at an early age, but not
until her acquaintances had seen developed
in her a nature that was all truth and gentle
ness, nor until the Avorid had recognised in
her writings the signs of a rare and delicate
genius, that wrought in modesty, but in re
pose, in the garden of the affections and in
ihe light of religion.
She was born in Newburyport, in Massa
chusetts, on the fourth of February, 1816,
and was the daughter of Mr. Joseph Hooper,
a respectable merchant, who saw with anx
ious pride the unfolding of her abilities, and
attended sedulously and judiciously to their
cultivation. After his death, and when Miss
Hooper was in her fifteenth year, the survi
ving members of the family removed to Brook
lyn, on Long Island ; and in this city she
passed the remainder of her life. Her health,
from childhood, war, precarious, and it is pos
sible that the ever-fatal disease of which she
died had already affected her physical ener
gies, while it quickened her intellectual fac
ulties and made them accessaries to her de
cay. Her rnind was delicately susceptible of
impressions of beauty, and she delighted most
in nature, particularly in flowers, the study
and cultivation of which were among her
dearest pleasures.
Her first poems that were published ap
peared in The Long Island Star, a Brooklyn
journal, under the signature of her initials.
Her you:h would have protected her compo
sitions from criticism, but they needed no
such protection. Beyond the limited circle
of her acquaintances, no one knew the mean
ing of " L. tl. ;" but these letters were soon
as familiar through all the country as the
names of favorite poets. For several years she
was a contributor to The New-Yorker, the
editor of which, Mr. Greeley — one of the first
justly to appreciate her merits — became an
intimate personal as well as literary friend.
In midsummer, 1839, Miss Hooper revis
ited her native village, and upon leaving it,
the lasi time, she wrote the following lines,
which have a biographical interest, though
they are scarcely equal to the average of her
productions in literary merit:
LINES VVF1TTEN AFTER VISITING NEWBURYPORT,
AUGUST 23, 18S3.
SWKE •.--iv.'ne the airs of home, when first their breath
Came to the wanderer, as her gladdened eye
Met the rich verdure of her native hills,
And the clear, glancing waters brought again
A thousand dreams of childhood to the heart
That had so pined amid the city's hum
For the glad breath of home, the waving trees,
And the fair flowers that in the olden time
Blew freshly mid the rocky cliffs.
All these
Had seemed but Fancy's picture, and the hues
Of Memory's pencil, fainter day by day,
Gave back the tracery 5 in the crowded mart
There were no green paths where the buds of home
Might blow unchecked, and a forgotten thing
Were Spring's first violets to the wanderer's heart,
Till once again amid those welcome haunts
The faded lines grew vivid, and the flowers —
The fresh, pure flowers of youth, brought back again
The bloom of early thoughts.
Oh ! bright.lv glanced
Thy waters, river of my heart, and dreams
Sweeter than childhood conneth came anew
With my first sight of thee, bright memories linked
With thy familiar music, sparkling tide!
The rocks and hills all smiled a welcome back,
And Memory's pencil hath a fadeless green
For that one hour by thee.
Oh, gentle home !
Comes with thy name fair visions, kindly tones,
Warm greetings from the heart, and eyes whose light
Hath smiled upon my dreams.
Yet golden links
Were strangely parted, music tones had past,
And ties unloosed, that unto many a heart
W7ere bound with life ; the musing child no more
Might watch the glancing of the distant sails,
And dream of one whose glad returning step
Made ever the fair sunshine of her home ;
The sister's heart might no more thrill to meet
One voice, that in the silence of the grave
Is hushed for ever, and whose eye's soft light
Come with its starry radiance, when her soul
Pines in the silent hour, and there waves
O'er the last resting place of one whose name
Is music to the ear of love, the green
And pensive willow, bending low its head
As it would weep the loss of that fair flower
Which, far removed from her own native clime,
Drooped in a land of strangers.
Home, sweet home
Thire are sad memories with thee ; earth hath not
283
LUCY HOOPER.
A place where change ne'er eometh, and where death
Doth cast no shadow ! yet the moonlight lieth
Soft'y in all thy still and shaded streets,
And the deep stars of midnight purely shine,
Bringing a thought of that far world where Love
Bindeth again his lost and treasured gems,
And in whose " many mansions" there may be
A home where change ne'er eometh, and where death
May leave no trace upon the pure in heart,
Who bend before their Father's throne in heaven !
In 1840, Miss Hooper published an Essay
on Domestic Happiness, and a volume enti
tled Scenes from Real Life ; and in these, as
we! as in other prose writings, are shown
the sensibility and natural grace which are
the charm of her poetry. It was about the
same time that she wrote The Last Hours
of a Young Poetess, a poem which has some
times been referred to as an illustration of
her own history.
The excellent Dr. JohnW. Francis, of whom
with a slight variation we may use the lan
guage of Coleridge respecting Sir Humphrey
Davy, that had he not become one of the first
physician? he would have been among the
most eminent literary men of his age, is ad
mirably fitted, as well by his intimate obser
vation of the influence of mental action upon
health, as by his general professional skill
and gpnial sympathies, to watch over and
protect so fragile and delicate a being, hap
pily attended Miss Hooper in her illness ;
and in a letter which, soon after her death,
he addressed to Mr. Keese, the editor of her
works, we have an interesting account of the
close of her life :
" For a period of many years," he says,
"the cultivation of her mind was little in
terrupted ; and though her corporeal suffering
was often an obstacle to continuous ^effort,
she sustained with unabated ardor her stud
ies in the ancient and modern languages, in
polite literature, in botany, and in several
of the other branches of natural science.
Doubtless the extent of her reading and her
acquisitions in varied knowledge contributed
to cherish in her family the delusive expec
tation that her constitution was destined for
a longer career of active exertion than fell to
her lot. Mental effort may in some instances
protract the duration of those energies which
at length it consumes. But the hopes cher
ished by her too ardent friends never for a
moment deceived herself. For the last four
months of her existence, her physical pow-
prs were yielding to the combined influence
19
of disease and intellectual action ; and after
a few days of aggravated suffering, painful
evidences were manifest of the fatality which
was impending. Her disorder Avas pulmo
nary consumption ; and the insidious peculi
arities of that treacherous malady were con
spicuous in her case in an eminent degree.
Within three days of her dissolution she was
occupied, with intervals of serious reflection,
in her literary labors, and conversed freely
on her projected plan of a series of moral
tales, her book on flowers, and other works.
Her life and habits of thought had long pre-
| pared her for the final event: severe exam
ination and inquiry contributed to strengthen
the consolation of religion. In her death,
which was without pain and without a strug
gle, she bequeathed to her friends triumphant
evidences of that hope which animates the
expiring Christian."
She died in Brooklyn, on the first of Au
gust, 1841. I happened at this time to be in
Boston, and a few days after, Mr. Whittier,
who was one of her intimate friends, sent
me from his place in Amesbury the following
beautiful and touching tribute to her memory,
which I had published in one of the papers
of that city:
"ON THE r>K\TH OF LUCY HOOPER.
" They tell me, Lucy, thou art dead —
That all of thee we loved and cherished
Has with thy summer roses perished;
And left, as its young beauty fled,
An ashen memory in its stead ! —
Cold twilight of a parted day.
That true and loving heart — that gift
Of a mind earnest, clear, profound,
Bestowing, with a glad unthrift,
Its sunny light on all around,
Affinities which only could
Cleave to the beautiful and good —
And sympathies which found no rest
Save with the loveliest and the best —
Of them, of thee, remains there naught
But sorrow in the mourner's breast —
A shadow in the land of Thought ]
" No ! Even my weak and trembling faitb
Can lift for thee the veil which doubt
And human fear have drawn about
The all-awaiting scene of death.
Even as thou wast I see thee still ;
And, save the absence of all ill,
And pain, and weariness, which here
Summoned the sigh or wrung the tear,
The same as when two summers back,
Beside our childhood's Merrimack,
I saw thy dark eye wander o'er
Stream, sunny upland, rocky shore,
And heard thy low, soft voice alone
Midst lapse of waters, and the tone
290
LUC Y HOOPER.
Of sere leaves by the west-wind b'own.
There's not a charm of soul or brow,
Of all we knew and loved in thee,
But lives in ho ier beauty now,
Baptized in immortality !
Not mine the sad and freezing dream
Of souls that with their earthly mould
Cast off the loves and joys of old —
Unbodied — like a pale moonbeam,
As pure, as passionless, and cold ;
Nor mine the hope of Indra's son,
Of slumbering in ob'ivion's rest,
Lile's myriads blending into one,
In bhtnk annihilation blest;
Dust-atoms of the infinite —
Sparks scattered from the central light,
And winning back, through mortal pain,
Their old unconsciousness again ! —
No ! I have friends in spirit-land,
Not shadows in a shadowy band,
Not others, but themse.ves, are they.
And still I think of them the same
As when the Master's summons came ;
Their change, t.,e holy morn-light breaking
rpun the dream-worn sleeper, waking —
A change from twilight into day !
They 've laid thee midst the household graves,
Wnere father, brother, sister, lie ;
Below thee sweep the dark blue waves,
Above thee bends the summer sky ;
Thy own loved church in sadness read
Her solemn ritual o'er thy head,
And blessed and hallowed with her prayer
The turf laid 1 ghtly o'er thee there :
That church, whose rites and liturgy,
Sublime and o'd, were truth to thee,
Undoubted, to thy bosom taken
As symbols of a faith unshaken.
Even I, of simpler views, could feel
The beauty of thy trust and zeal ;
And, owning not thy creed, could see
How lifelike it must seem to thee,
And how thy fervent heart had thrown
O'er all a coloring of its own,
And kindled up intense and warm
A life in every rite and form ;
As, when on Chebar's banks of old
The Hebrew's gorgeous vision rolled,
A spirit iilled the vast machine —
A life ' within the wheels' was seen !
" Farewell ! — a little time, and we
Who knew thee well, and loved thee here,
One after one shall follow thee,
As pilgrims through the gate of Fear
Which opens on Eternity.
Yet we shall cherish not the less
AH that is left our hearts meanwhile ;
The memory of thy loveliness
Shall round our weary pathway smile,
Like moon ight, when the sun has set
A sweet and tender radiance yet.
Thoughts of thy clear-eyed sense of duty,
Thy generous scorn of all things wrong;
The trulh, the strength, the graceful beauty,
Which blended in thy song;
All lovely things by thee beloved
Shall whisper to our hearts of thee :
These green hills where thy childhood roved •
Yon river winding to the sea;
The sunset light of Autumn eves
Reflecting on the deep, still floods ;
Cloud, crimson sky, and trembling leaves
Of rainbow-tinted woods —
These in our view shall henceforth take
A tenderer meaning for thy sake.
And all thou lovedst of earth and sky
Seem sacred to thy memory."
The general regret at her death was shown
j ia many such feeling tributes. Another is
I quoted here, not so much for its own beauty,
as for the opinions it embodies of one of our
most accomplished critics respecting her ge
nius and character :
ON THE DEATH OF MISS LUCY HOOPER.
HI' H. T. TUCKKKMAN.
" And thou art gone ! sweet daughter of the lyre,
Whose strains we hoped to hear thee waken long ,•
Gone — as the stars in morning's light expire,
Gone like the rapture of a passing song ;
Gone from a circle who thy gifts have cherished,
With genial fondness and devoted care,
W hose dearest hopes with thee have sadly perished,
And now can find no solace but in prayer ;
Prayer to be like thee, in so meeklv bearing
Both joy and sorrow from thy Maker's hand ;
Prayer to put on the white robes thou art wearing,
And join thy anthem in the better land."
Miss Hooper's life was singularly indus
trious, considering the feebleness of her con-
sti ution. She seemed to be sensible that her
abilities were a trust which imposed respon
sibilities, and she never suffered time to pass
unimproved. Some of her last days were
devoted to the preparation of a work entitled
The Poetry of Flowers, which was published
soon after her death. She had in anticipa
tion also another work in prose similar to
her Scenes from Domestic Life, and her in
clination had led her to undertake a long
poem, upon some historical subject. It is to
be regretted that death prevented ibis project
from being realized.
In 1842 Mr. John Keese collected and ar
ranged the Literary Remains of Miss Hoop
er, which he published with a graceful and
affectionate memoir of her life and genius.
No one knew her more intimately, and there
are few whose appreciation of personal char
acter and poetical merit would have enabled
them so well to perform this mournfully pleas
ing duty. In the present year (1848) a new
and considerably enlarged edition of her Po
etical Works has appeared from the press of
Mr. D. Fanshaw.
LUCY HOOPER.
291
THE SUMMONS OF DEATH.*
A VOICE is on mine ear — a solemn voice
I come, I come, it calls me to my rest ;
Faint not rny yearning heart, rejoice, rejoice,
Soon shalt thou reach the gardens of the blest :
On the bright waters there, the living streams,
Soon shalt thou launch in peace thy weary bark,
Waked by rude waves no more from gentle dreams,
Sadly to feel that earth to thee is dark —
Not bright as once ; oh vain, vain memories, cease,
I cast your burden down —I strive for peace.
A voice is on mine ear — a welcome tone :
1 hear its summons in a stranger land,
Tt cal s me hence, to die amid mine own,
Where first my forehead, by the wild breeze fanned,
Lost the fair tracery of youth, and wore
A deeper signet, in my manhood's prime —
To lay me down with those who wake no more,
It calls me — those 1 loved, their couch be mine :
I hear sweet voices from my childhood's home,
And from my father's grave — T come, I come !
Blest be the warning sound : my mother's eyes
Dwell on my memory yet, her parting tears,
And from the grave where my young sister lies,
Who perished in the glory of her years,
I hear a gentle call, " Return, return !"
So be it : let me greet the village spires
Once more. I come — 't is wilding youth may spurn,
When far, the burial-places of his sires ;
But oh. when strength is gone, and hope is past,
There turns the wearied man his thoughts at last.
So do we change ! I hear a warning tone —
Yea, T, whose thoughts were all of bypast times,
Of ancient glories, and from visions lone,
I come to list once more the sabbath chimes
Of my own home —to feel the gentle air
Steal o'er my brow again — to greet the sun
In the okl places where he shone so fair,
The while each wandering brook in music ran,
Answering to Youth's sweet thoughts, but all are
I come, my home, I come to join thy dead ! [fled —
I heed the warning voice : oh, spurn me not,
My early friends ; let the bruised heart go free :
Mine were high fancies, but a wayward lot
Hath made my youthful dreams in sadness flee ;
Then chide not, I would linger yet awhile,
Thinking o'er wasted hours, a weary train,
Cheered by the moon's soft light the sun's glad smile,
Watching the blue sky o'er my path of pain,
Waiting my summons : whose shall be the eye
To glance unkindly — I have come to die !
Sweet words — to die ! oh p'easant. pleasant sounds,
What bright revealings to my heart they bring;
* And -hould they a^k the cau-e of my return. I will
tell th. in that a m;m may TO far and tarry long away, if
Bbhfhlth he <:ood and hi- Imp. s hi-li, hut 'that when llesh
an. I spirit br^in to tail, lu- rem-mber- his bi> thplace mid
Inn o'd burial ground, and hears a voice callinir him to
come home to hi.- tiither and mother. They will know
i>\ n,y wasted frame and feeble ,-tep. that I have heard
the -linmions and obeyed; and, the first jrreetinsrs over.
fhey \\-ili !,.[ me walk among them unnoticed, and linger
in Hie. sunshine while I may, and ste^ into my grave" in
ftmct?.- Journal of a Solitary Man.
WThat melody, unheard in earth's dull rounds,
And floating from the land of glorious Spring —
The eternal home ! my weary thoughts revive,
Fresh flowers my mind puts forth, and buds of love,
Gentle and kindly thoughts for all that live,
Fanned by soft breezes from the world above :
And passing not, I hasten to my rest —
Again, oh gentle summons, thou art blest !
"TIME, FAITH, ENERGY."*
HIGH words and hopeful ! — fold them to thy heart
Time, Faith, and Energy, are gifts sublime ;
If thy lone bark the threatening waves surround
Make them of all thy silent thoughts a part.
When thou wouldst cast thy pilgrim staff away,
Breathe to thy soul their high, mysterious sound,
And faint not in the noontide of thy day :
Wait thou for Time ! •
Wait thou for Time : the slow-unfolding flower
Chides man's impatient haste with long delay ;
The harvest ripening in the autumnal sun ;
The golden fruit of Suffering's weighty power
Within the soul — like soft bells' siivery chime
Repeat the tones, if fame may not be won,
Or if the heart where thou shouldst find a shrina,
Breathe forth no blessing on thy lonely way-
Wait Ihou for Time : it hath a sorcerer's power
To dim life's mockeries that gaylv shine,
To lift the veil of seeming from the real,
Bring to thy soul a rich or fearful dower,
Write golden tracery on the sands of life,
And raise the drooping heart from scenes ideal
To a high purpose in the world of strife :
WTait thou for Time !
Yea, wait for Time, but to thy heart take Faith,
Soft beacon-light upon a stormy sea ;
A mantle for the pure in heart, to pass
Through a dim world, untouched by living death,
A cheerful watcher through the spirit's night,
Soothing the grief from which she may not flee —
A herald of glad news — a seraph bright,
Pointing to sheltering havens yet to be.
Yea, Faith and Time — and thou that through the
Of the lone night hast nerved the feeble hand, [hour
Kindled the weary heart with sudden fire,
(Jilted the drooping soul with living power,
Immortal Energy ! shalt thou not be
M hile the old tales our wayward thoughts inspire,
Linked with each vision of high destiny,
Till on the fadeless borders of that land
Where all is known we find our certain way,
And lose ye, mid its pure, effulgent light ]
Kind ministers, who cheered us in our gloom,
Seraphs who lightened griefs with guiding ray,
Whispering through tears of cloudless glory dawn-
Say, in the gardens of eternal bloom [ing — •
Will not our hearts, when breaks the cloudless
morning,
Joy that ye led us through the drooping nigh I »
* Suggested by a passage in Bulwer's Night and Morn
LUCY HOOPER.
LAST HOURS OF A YOUNG POETESS.
" Alas', our young affection* run to waste
Or water but tire desert, whence arise
Hut weeds of dark luxuriance, tares of baste,
Hank at the < ore, but tempting to the eyes,
Flowers whose wild odur.-> breathe hut agonies.
And trees whose «iui)s are poison: snoli tire fruits
Which spun:: beneath her steps, as Passion Hies
ilde
ly pants
() .•!- the w ilil wild. -i ness. an. I vainly pants
For some i elestial fruit, forbidden to our wants '."—Byron.
Tiutow up the window! that the earnest eyes
Of the young devotee at Nature's shrine
May catch a last glimpse of this breathing world
From which she is removing.
Men will say
This is an early death, and they will write
The record of her few and changeful years
Writh wonder on the marble, and then turn
Away with thoughtful brows from the green sod,
Yet pass to daily business, for the griefs
That press on busy spirits may not turn
Their steps aside from the worn paths of life,
Or bear upon the memory when the quick
And selfish course of daily care sweeps by.
Yet, when they speak of that lost one, 'twill be
With tones of passionate marvel, for they watched
Her bright career as they would watch a star
Of dazzling brilliancy, and mourn to see
Its glory quenched, and wonder while ye mourned
How the thick pall of darkness could be thrown
O'er such a radiant thing.
Is this the end
Of all thy glorious visions, young Estelle ]
Hath thy last hours drawn on, and will thy life
Pass by as quickly as the perfumed breath
Of some fair flower upon the zephyr's wings'!
And will they lay thee in the quiet grave,
And never know how fervently thy heart
Panted for its repose ] Oh ! let the peace
Of this sweet hour be hers; let her gaze forth
Now on the face of Nature for the last,
While the bright sunbeam trembles in the air
Of the meek-coming twilight : it will soothe
Her spirit as a spell, and waken up
Impassioned thoughts, and kindle burning dreams,
And call back glorious visions.
Marvel not
To see her color pass, and view the tears
Fast gathering to her eyes, and see her bend
In very weakness at the fearful shrine
Of Memory, when the glory of the past
Js gone for ever. Gaze not on her now •
Her spirit is a delicate instrument,
Nor can ye know its measure. How unlike
That wearied one to the bright, gifted girl,
Who knelt a worshipper at the deep shrine
Of Poetry, and, mid the fairest things,
Pined for lone solitude — to read the clouds
With none to watch her, and dream pleasant things
Of after-life, and sec in every flower
The mysteries of Nature, and behold
In every star the herald and the sign
Of immortality, till she almost shrank
To feel the secret and expanding might
Of her own mind ! and thus amid the flowers
Of a glad home grew beautiful. Away
With praises upon Time ! with hollow tones
That te'l the blessedness of after-years!
They take the fragrance from the soul ; they rob
Life of its gloss, its poetry, its charm,
Till the heart sickens, and the mental wing
Droops wearily : and thus it was with her,
The gifted and the lovely. Oh, how much
The world will envy those whose hearts are filled
With secret or unchanging grief, if fame
Or outward splendor gilds them ! Who among
The throngs that sung thy praises, young Estelle,
Or crowned thy brow with laurels, ever reckeJ
That, wearier of thy chaplet than the slave
May be with daily toil, thy hand would cast
The laurel by with loathing, but the pride
Of woman's heart withheld thee !
Oh, how praise
Falls on the sorrowing mind ; how cold the voice
Of Flattery, when the spirit is bowed down
Before its mockery, and the heart is sick ;
Praise for the gift of genius — for the grace
Of outward form — when the soul pines to hear
One kindly tone and true ! What bitter jest
It makcth of the enthusiast, to whom
One star alone can shine, one voice be heard
In tones of blessedness, to know that crowds
Of earth's light-hearted ones are treasuring up
Against their day of sorrow the deep words
Of wretchedness and misery which burst
From an o'erburdened spirit, and that minds
Which may not rise to heaven on the wings
Of an inspired fancy, yet can list
With raptured ear to the ethereal dreams
Of a high-soaring genius. For this end
Didst thou seek fame, Estelle ; — and hast thou
The atmosphere of poetry, till life [breathed
With its dull toil grew wearisome and lone]
Her brow grewquickly pale, and murmured words
That not in life dwelt on that gentle lip,
Are spoken in the recklessness of death.
They tell of early dreams — of cherished hopes
That faded into bitterness ere Fame
Became the spirit's idol, of lost tones
Of music, and of well-remembered words
That thrill the spirit yet. Again it comes,
That half-reproachful voice that she hath spent
Her life at Passion's shrine, and patient thero
Hath sacrificed, and offered incense to
An absent idol — that she might not see,
Even in death — and then again the strength
Of a high soul sustains her, and she joys,
Yea, triumphs in her fame, that he may hear
Her name with honor, when the dark shades fall
Around her, and she sleeps in still repose:
If some faint tone should reach him at the last
Of her devotedness, he will not spurn
The memory from him, but his soul may thrill
To think of her, the fervent-hearted girl,
Who turned from flattering tones, and idly cast
The treasures of her spirit on the winds,
And f,)und no answering voice !
Then prayed for death,
Since life's sweet spells had vanished, and her hopes
Had melted in thin air : and laying down
Her head upon her pillow, sought her rest,
And thought to meet him in the land of dreams !
LUCY HOOPER.
29:*
THE TURQUOISE KING*
THE turquoise ring! 'twas a gift of power,
Guarding her heart in that weary hour,
As a magic spell, as a gem of light,
As a pure, pure star amidst clouds of night,
Bringing back to the pa'e, pale cheek its bloom,
St engthening the heart in that hour of doom ;
There was hope, there was trust with its living hue.
The gem was bright, and the lover true,
As a sign to her heart, as a sign to her eye,
The one bright gleam of a troubled sky.
The turquoise, ring! oh, the olden time
Hath many a magic tale and si^n,
Bright gifts of treasure on land and on sea,
But naught for the heart or the memory ;
For what might the fairy lamp of old
Yield to its owner but gems and gold 1
And to her who sat in that lonely hall
The turquoise ring was worth them all;
For the heart hath a dearer wealth than lies
In the earth's wide ha Is and argosies ;
And its hopes are more precious than stores of gold
When richest and rarest by miser told,
For what had been gems that brightly shone,
To her who sat in her grief alone ]
Oh, the turquoise ring had a spell of power!
This was a gift for the weary hour,
Linking the future to all the past,
Breathing of moments too bright to last,
Till they came in the light of their bliss,
To soothe, to gladden an hour like this.
Oh ! Love hath wings, they have said who knew,
And that Love hath wings is a story true,
But there lingers a bloom on his early hours,
When his wings are folded mid opening flowers,
Wiien the streams are bright, and the sky is fair,
And the hearts too happy that trust him there ;
There lingers a bloom, and there rests a glow,
A charm that the earth not again may know !
And when from that resting-place he flies,
Oil ! linked with a thousand memories,
Each bud and each leaf by our fond tears wet,
May breathe of his sweetness and beauty yet!
Bo with the past, and its holy love —
Sj with its hopes, that soared above —
With the visions that came to her nightly rest,
Was the turquoise ring to her finger pressed :
Oil ! beautiful to her its light,
Cou d she forget that pleasant night
When first her finger's s'ender round
Was with the golden circlet bound,
And Hushed r/ne not to see it shine,
But at the low tone, " Love, be mine !"
Since then, since then, unchanged its hue,
Her hope, her trust, alike were true ;
But pale at times that cheek so bright,
And dimmed those eyes of living light,
For dreams were hers of pain and dread,
* 1 1 Miss Martineau's novel of Deerbrook. the heroine
is in id,. K, piv.-rrvu vv.th ureat care a turquoise ring,
•which he>' lover had iriven i,er jn tne ear]y (}.iys Of ti,,.f,.
atachment. and during a lonir period of doubt and es-
taiugemeiit, to "believe that while its lines continued un-
aimrned. his laith remained to her unbroken. ,So poetic
and iervent a belief met with its appropriate reward: the
turquoise ring remained bright, and the lover returned.
Yet still the ring its lustre shed ;
They met and parted, as of yore
Fond hearts have met, and chilled before,
And coldness, sadness, fear, had been
Like cloud upon the sunny scene.
Yet woman's love will always strive,
And woman's faith through all things live,
And beautiful the maiden's truth,
And beautiful her trusting youth;
Through all, through all, the turquoise ring
A hope, a dream, a joy could bring;
And still, if clear and bright its hue,
Her faith was firm, her lover true !
Oh, gift of power ! it brought at last
A bright, bright future for the past !
Oh, gift of power ! that cheek once more
Wore the rich bloom that blushed of yore !
Oh, gift of power ! who would not sing —
" For me, for me, the turquoise ring;
For me, for me, when living faith
Faints in a world of change and death;
When sick with fear the heart may be,
And sad, oh ! sad the memory ;
When dimly, dimly, dimly glow
The hopes, the trusts, that cling below —
Then give me, give the turquoise rii-o.
Or the pure faith, a better thing !''
GIVE ME ARMOR OF PROOF.
GIVE me armor of proof, I must ride to the plain ;
Give me armor of proof, ere the trump sound again :
To the halls of my childhood no more am I known,
And the nettle must rise where the myrtle hath
Till the conflict is over, the battle is past, [blown !
Give me armor of proof — I am true to the 1'ast !
Give me armor of proof, bring me helmet and spear ;
Away ! shall the warrior's cheek own a tear 1
Bring the steel of Milan — 'tis the firmest and best,
And bind o'er my bosom its closely-linked vest,
Where the head of a loved one in fondness hath lain,
Whose tears fell at parting like warm summer rain !
Give me armor of proof: I have torn from my heart
Each soft tie and true that forbade me to part ;
Bring the sword of Damascus — its blade cold ai?.d
bright,
That bends not in conflict, but gleams in the fight ;
And stay — let me fasten yon scarf on my breast,
Love's light pledge and true — I will answer the rest !
Give me armor of proof : shall the cry be in vain,
When to life's sternest conflicts we rush forth
amain 1
The knight clad in armor the battle may bide,
But wo to the heedless when bendeth the triod,
And wo to youth's morn, when we rode forth ulono,
To the conflict unguarded, its gladness hath flown !
Give us armor of proof — our hopes were all high,
But they passed like the meteor lights from the sky i
Our hearts' trust was firm, but Life's waves swept
away
One by one the frail ties which were shelter and stay:
And true was our love, but its bonds broke in twain •
Give me armor of proof, ere we ride forth again.
201
LUCY" HOOPER.
Give me armor of proof: we would turn from the j
Of a wor'd th;it is fading to our that is true ; [view
We would lift up each thought from this earth-
shaded light,
To the regions above, where there stealeth ir> h' i :ht ;
And with Faith's chosen shie d by no dark tempests
riven,
We would gaze from earth's storms on the bright
ness of heaven.
THE CAVALIKR'S LAST HOURS.
A DIRGE, a dirge for the young renown
Of the reckless cavalier,
Who passed in his youth and glory down
To the grave without a fear,
The smile on his lip, and the light in his eye —
Oh ! say, was it thus that the brave should die ]
Midst the morning's pomp and flowers,
By fierce and ruffian bands,
In sight of his own ancestral towers,
And his father's sweeping lands :
WTell that his mother lay still and low,
Ere the cold clods pressed on her son's bright brow !
Oh, the tide of grief swelled high
In hi.s heart that dawn of day,
As he looked his last on the glorious sky,
And the scenes that round him lay ;
But he trod the green earth in that moment of fear
With a statelier bearing, the doomed cavalier !
For fearless his spirit then,
And bravely he met his fate,
Till the brows of those iron-hearted men
Grew dark in their utter hate
Of the gallant victim, who met his hour
With a song on his lips for his lady's bower.
The light of the festive hall,
The bravest in battle array —
• Was it thus that the star of his fate should fall,
Was it thus he should pass away 1
A dirge, a dirge for his hopes of fame ;
The grave will close o'er the noble name !
And the tide of life flow on
In its dull, deep current, as ever,
Till every trace of his fate is gone
From its dark and ceaseless river.
But one may remember, oh young cavalier —
Couldst thou gaze but once on the sleeper near!
That bright and fairy girl,
With no shadow on her brow,
Save the b!ue vein's trace and the golden curl
She is dreaming of thee now.
She whispers thy name in her gentle rest;
But how \Vill she wake from that slumber blest!
A. dirge, a dirge for the young renown
Of the reckless cavalier ! [around,
He hath waved for the last his plumed bonnet
And his parting words they hear, [cry
" (rod save King Charles !" — a shriek : a woman's
ingled with the martial sounds that rent the
earth and sky !
THK DAUGHTER OF HERODIA3.*
MOTH Kit ! I bring thy gift;
Take from mv hand the dreaded boon — I pray
Take it; the sti.l, pale sorrow of the face
Hath left upon my soul its living trace,
Never to pass away,
Since from these lips one word of idle breath
Blanched that calm face. Oh, mother, this is death !
What is it that I see
From al! the pure and settled features gleaming ?
Reproach ! reproach ! My dreams are strange and
Mother ! hadst thou no pity on thy child ? [wild.
Lo ! a celestial smile seems softly beaming
On the hushed lips ; my mother, canst thou brook
Longer upon thy victim's face to look 1
Alas ! at yester morn
My heart was light, and to the viol's sound
I gay !y danced, while crowned with summer flowers,
And swiftly by me sped the flying hours;
And all was joy around —
Not death. Oh, mother! could I say thee nay]
Take from thy daughter's hand thy boon away !
Take it : mv heart is sad,
And the pure forehead hath an icy chill.
I dare not touch it, for avenging Heaven
Hath shuddering visions to my fancy given ;
And the pale face appals me, cold and still,
With the closed lips. Oh, tell me, could I know
That the pale features of the dead were so ]
I may not turn away [name
From the charmed brow ; and I have heard his
Even as a prophet by his people spoken ;
And that high brow in death bears seal and token
Of one whose words were flame.
Oh, holy teacher, couldst thou rise and live,
Would not these hushed lips whisper, " I forgive !"
Away with lute and harp —
With the glad heart for ever, and the dance '
Never again shall tabret sound for me.
Oh, fearful mother, I have brought to thee
The silent dead with his rebuking glance,
And the crushed heart of one to whom are given
Wild dreams of judgment and offended Heaven!
EVENING THOUGHTS.
THOU quiet moon, above the hill-tops shining,
How do I revel in thy glances bright,
How does my heart, cured of its vain repining,
Take note of those who wait and watch thy light:
The student o'er his lonely volume bending,
The pale enthusiast, joying in thy ray,
And ever and anon his dim thoughts sending
Up to the regions of eternal day !
Nor these alone — the pure and radiant eyes
Of youth and hope look up to thee with love ;
Would it were thine, meek dweller of the skies,
* Written after seeing, nmoiiff a collection of beautiful
paintings, (copies from the old musters, recently sent to
New Yurk from Italy,) one representing thf daughter of
Herodias bearing the head of John the'Baptist on a char
ger. ;nul vvciiriiiii upon her countenance an expression, not
of triumph, as one might suppose, hut rather of .-oft ;u:d
sorrowful remorse, as she looks upon the calm and beau
tiful features of her victim.
LUCY HOOPER.
To save from tears ! but no — too far above
This dim cold earth thou shinest, richly flinging
Thy soft light down on all who watch thy beam,
And Lo the heart of sorrow gently bringing
The glories pictured in life's morning stream,
As a loved presence back : oh, shine to me,
As to the voyagers on the faithless sea !
Joy's beacon light ! I know that trembling Care,
Warned by thy coining, hies him to repose,
And on his pillow laid, serenely there,
Forgets his calling, that at day's dull close
Meek age and rosy childhood sink to rest,
And Passion lays her fever dreams aside,
And the unquiet thought in every breast
Loses its selfish fervor and its pride, [ing,
With thoughts of thee — the while their vigil keep-
The quiet stars hold watch o'er beauty sleeping !
But unto me, thou still and solemn li^ht, [trust
What mayst thou bring ? high hope, unwavering
In Him who, for the watches of the night,
Ordained thy coming, and on things of dust
Hath poured a gift of power — on wings to rise
From the low earth and its surrounding gloom
To higher spheres, tU as the shaded skies
Are lighted by thv glories, gentle moon.
So are life's lonely hours and dark despair
*... ered by the star of faith, the torch of prayer.
LINES.
SAY, have I left thee, wild but gt. .tie lyre,
That on the willow thou hast hung so long 1
Oh, do not still my unbidden thoughts aspire
From my heart's fount ? flows not the gush of song,
Though heavily upon the spirit's wing
Lies earthly care — a dull, corroding thing ]
Must it be ever so,
That in the shadow and the gloom my path
Is destined ] — shall the high heart always bow ]
Father, may it not pass, this cup of wrath —
Shall not at last the kindled flame bum free
On my soul's altar, consecate to thee 1
Say, in my bosom's urn
Shall feelings glow for ever unexpressed,
And lonely, fervent thoughts unheeded burn,
And passion linger on, a hidden guest ?
Hath the warm sky no token for my heart —
In my green, early years shall Hope depart ]
Peace at this quiet hour
And holy thoughts be given. Let me soar
From life's dim air and shadowy skies that lower
Around me, and with thrilling heart adore
Thy mercy, Father ! who can soothe the wild,
Forgetful murmurings of thine erring child.
Ay, by the bitter dreams,
The fervor wasted ere my spirit's prime,
The few brief sunny gleams
Ripening the heart's wild flowers, that ere their time
Blew brightly and were crushed — by all the tears
That quenched the fiery thoughts of early years —
V es ! by each phantom shade that memory brings,
Voices whose tone my heart remembers yet,
Names that no more shall thrill — departed things
That I would fain forget —
By the past weakness and the coming trust,
Father, I lay my fore'iead in the dust,
Meeklv adoring — \ielding up my care
To Thee, v.'ho through the stormy past hath tried
A wayward mind, which else had deemed too fair
This fleeting wor'd, and wandered far and wide
Astray — and worshipped still, forgetting Thee,
The one bright star of its ido'atry.
Nor be these thoughts in vain
To aid me in this rude word's ruder strife,
When a high soul doth struggle with its chain, .
And turn away in bitterness from life —
Strengthen me, guide me, till in realms above
I taste the untroubled waters of thy love.
THE OLD DAYS WE REMEMBER
THK old days we remember,
How softly did they glide,
While all untouched by worldly care
We wandered side by side !
In those pleasant days, when the sun's last rays
Just lingered on the hill,
Or the moon's pale light with the coming night
Shone o'er our pathway still.
The old days we remember —
Oh ! there's nothing like them now,
The glow has faded from our hearts,
The blossom from the bough ;
In the chill of care, midst worldly air,
Perchance we are colder grown,
For stormy weather, since we roamed together,
The hearts of both have known.
The old days we remember —
Oh ! clearer shone the sun,
And every star looked brighter far
Than they ever since have done !
On the very streams there lingered gleams
Of light ne'er seen before,
And the running brook a music took
Our souls can hear no more.
The old days we remember —
Oh ! could we but go back
To their quiet hours, and tread once more
Their bright, familiar track —
Could we picture again what we pictured then,
Of the sunny world that lay
From the green hillside, and the waters wide.
And our glad hearts far away !
The old days we remember,
When we never dreamed of guile,
Nor knew that the heart could be cold below,
While the lip still wore its smile !
Oh, we may not forget, for those hours come jut
They visit us in sleep,
While far and wide, o'er life's changing1 tide,
Our barks asunder keep.
Still, still we must remember
Life's first and brightest days,
And a passing tribute render
As we tread the busy maze ,
A bitter sigh for the hours gone by,
The dreams that might not last.
The friends deemed true when our hopes were ne'v
And the glorious visions past !
LUCY HOOPER.
LINES SUGGESTED BY A SCENE IN
"MAS IKK HUMPHREY'S CLUCK."*
BKAUTIFUL child ; my lot is cast —
Hope from my path hath for ever past;
Nothing the future can bring to me
Hath ever been shadowed in dreams to thee •,
The warp is \voven, the arrow sped,
My brain hath throbbed, but my heart is dead :
Te 1 ye my tale, then, for love or go'd 1 —
Years have passed by since that tale was told.
God keep thee, child, with thine angel brow,
Ever as sinless and bright as now;
Fresh as the roses of earliest spring,
The fair, pure buds it is thine to bring.
A\ ou!d that the bloom of the soul could be,
Beautiful spirit ! caught from thee ;
Would that thy gift could anew impart
The roses that bloom for the pure in heart.
Beautiful child ! mayst thou never hear
Tones of reproach in thy sorrowing ear ;
Beautiful child ! may that cheek ne'er glow
With a warmer tint from the heart below :
Beautiful child ! mayst thou never bear
The clinging weight of a cold despair — •
A heart, whose madness each hope hath crossed,
Which hath thrown one die, and the stake hath lost.
Beautiful child ! why shouldst thou stay ]
There is danger near thee — away, away !
Away ! in thy spotless purity :
Nothing can here be a type of thee;
The very air, as it fans thy brow,
May leave a trace on its stainless snow :
Lo ! spirits of evil haunt the bowers,
And the serpent glides from the trembling flowers.
Beautiful child ! alas, to see
A fount in the desert gush forth for thee,
Where the queenly lilies should faintly gleam,
And thy life flow on as its silent stream
Afar from the world of doubt and sin —
This weary world thou must wander in :
Such a home was once to my vision given —
It comes to my heart as a type of heaven.
Beautiful child ! let the weary in heart
Whisper thee once, ere again we part;
Tell thee that want, and tell thee that pain
Never can thrill in the throbbing braiu,
Till a sadder story that brain hath learned —
Till a fiercer fire hath in it burned :
God keep thee sinless and undefiled,
Though poor, and wretched, and sad, my child !
Beautiful being ! away, away !
The angels above be thy help and stay,
•Save thee from sorrow, and save thee from sin,
Guard thee from danger without and within.
Pure be thy spirit, and breathe for me
A sigh or a prayer when thy heart is free ;
In the crowded mart, by the lone wayside,
Beautiful child ! be thy God thy guide.
• "Nelly bore upon her arm the little basket with her
flowers, and sometimes stopped, with timid and modest
looks, to nfiVr tb«:in at some gay carnage There
LIFE AND DEATH.
La mort eat le seul dieu qtie J'c
nploier.
NOT unto thee, oh pale and radiant Death !
Not unto thee, though every hope be past,
Through Life's first, sweetest stars may shine na
more,
Nor earth again one cherished dream restore,
Or from the bright urn of the future cast
Aught, aught of joy on me.
Yet unto thee, oh monarch ! robed and crowned,
And beautiful in all thy sad array,
I bring no incense, though the heart be chill,
And to the eyes, that tears alone may fill,
Shines not as once the wonted light of day,
Still upon another shrine my vows
Shall all be duly paid; and though thy voice
Is full of music to the pining heart,
And woos one to that pillow of calm rest,
Where all Life's dull and restless thoughts depart,
Still, not to thee, oh Death !
I pay my vows ; though now to me thy brow
Seems crowned with roses of the summer prime,
And to the aching sense thy voice would be,
Oh Death ! oh Death ! of softest melody,
And gentle ministries alone were thine,
Still I implore thee not.
But thou, oh Life ! oh Life ! the searching test
Of the weak heart ! to thee, to thee I bow ;
And if the fire upon the altar shrine
Descend, and scathe each glowing hope of mine,
Still may my heart, as now,
Turn not from that dread test.
But let me pay my vows to thee, oh Life !
And let me hope that from that glowing fire
There yet may be redeemed a gold more pure
And bright, and eagle thoughts to mount and soar
Their flight the higher,
Released from earthly hope or earthly fear.
This, this, oh Life ! be mine.
Let others strive thy glowing wreaths to bind — •
Let others seek thy false and dazzling gleams:
For me their light went out on early streams,
And faded were thy roses in my grasp,
No more, no more to bloom.
Yet as the stars, the holy stars of night,
Shine out when all is dark,
So would I, cheered by hopes more purely bright,
Tread still the thorny path whose close is light,
If, but at last, the tossed and weary bark
Gains the sure haven of her final rest.
was but one lady who seemed to understand the child,
and >he was one who sat alone in a handsome carriage,
while two younir men in dashing ciotbes, who had just
d;8mounted from it. talked and laughed loudly at a little
distance, appearing to forjret her quite. There were many
ladies all around, but they turned their backs, or looked
another way, or at the two young men, (not unfavorably
at thi-jjt.} and left her to herself/ .^he motioned away a
gipsy-woman, urgent to tell her fortune, sayinir. that it
was told already, and had been for some years, but called
the child toward her, and taking her flowers, put money
into her trembling hand, and bade her go home, and keep
at home, for God's sake "
LUCY HOOPER.
297
LEGENDS OF FLOWERS*1
OH, gorgeous tales in clays of old
Were linked with opening flowers,
As if in their fairy urns of gold
Beat human hearts like ours ;
The nuns in their cloister, sad and pale,
As they watched soft buds expand,
On their glowing petals traced a tale
Or legend of holy land.
Brightly to them did thy snowy leaves
For the sainted Mary shine,
As they twined for her forehead vestal wreaths
Of thy white buds, cardamine !
The crocus shone, when the fields were bare,
W ith a gay, rejoicing smile ;
But the hearts that answered Love's tender prayer
Grew brightened with joy the while.
Of the coming spring and the summer's light,
To others that flower might say,
But the lover welcomed the herald bright
Of the glad St. Valentine's day.
The crocus was hailed as a happy flower,
And the holy saint that day
Poured out on the earth their golden shower
To light his votaries' way.
On the day of St. George, the brave St. George,
To merry Eng'and dear,
By field and by fell, and by mountain gorge,
Shone hyacinths blue and clear :
Lovely and prized was their purple light,
And 'twas said in ancient story,
That their fairy bells rung out at night
A peal to old England's glory ;
And sages read in the azure hue
Of the flowers so widely known,
That by white sail spread over ocean's blue,
Should the empire's right be shown.
And thou of faithful memory,
St. John, thou " shining light,"
Beams nc.t a burning torch for thee,
The scarlet lychnis bright?
While holy Mary, at thy shrine,
Another pure flower blooms,
Welcome to thee with news divine,
The lily's faint perfumes ;
Proudly its stately head it rears,
Arrayed in virgin white —
So Truth, amid a world of tears,
Doth shine with vestal light.
And thou, whose opening buds were shown,
A Savior's cross beside,
We hail thee, passion flower alone,
Sacred to Christ, who died.
No image of a mortal love,
May thy bright blossoms be
Linked with a passion far above
A Savior's agony.
* Tlirs<> lines refer to some of the old fanciful ideas at-
ached to the opening of flowers. In the RomUh church
tt events were carefully noted down, and every flower
wsommg on a saint's day was considered to bloom in
Honor ot that saint.
All other flowers are pale and dim,
All other gifts are loss,
We twine thy matchless buds for him
Who died on holy cross.
OSCEOLA.
NOT on the battle-plain,
As when thy thousand warriors joyed to meet tlioc.
Sounding the fierce war-cry,
Leading them forth to die :
Not thus — not thus we greet thee.
But in a hostile camp,
Lonely amid thy foes —
Thine arrows spent,
Thy brow unbent,
Yet wearing record of thy people's woes.
Chief! for thy memories now,
While the tall palm against this quiet sky
Her branches waves,
And the soft river laves
The green and flower-crowned banks it wanders by
W'hile in this golden sun
The burnished rifle gleameth with strange light,
And sword and spear
Rest harmless here,
Yet flash with startling radiance on the sight ;
Wake they thy glance of scorn,
Thou of the folded arms and aspect stern 1
Thou of the soft, deep tone,*
For whose rich music gone,
Kindred and tribe full soon may vainly yearn !
Wo for the trusting hour !
Oh, kingly stag, no hand hath brought thee down :
'T was with a patriot's heart,
W7here fear usurped no part,
Thou earnest, a noble offering — and alone !
For vain yon army's might,
While for thy band the wide plain owned a tree,
And the wild vine's 'tangled shoots
On the gnarled oak's mossy roots
Their trysting-place might be.
Wo for thy hapless fate !
Wo for thine evil times and lot, brave chief!
Thy sadly -closing story,
Thy quickly-vanished glory,
Thy high but hopeless struggle, brave and brief.
Wo for the bitter stain
That from our country's banner may not part !
Wo for the captive — wo !
For bitter pains and slow
Are his who dieth of the fevered heart '
Oh, in that spirit-land,
Where never yet the oppressor's foot hath passed .
Chief! by those sparkling streams
Whose beauty mocks our dreams,
May that high heart have won its rest at last '
* Osceola was remarkable for a soft and tlutelike voico.
The above poem was written upon seeing a picture o1
him by Captain Vinton, U. S. A., representing him as be
appeared in the American camp.
SARAH EDO ART ON MAYO.
(Born 1818— Died 1848).
Miss SARAH C. EDGARTON, who in 1846
became the wife of the Rev. A. D. MAYO,
minister of the Universal ist Church in Glou
cester, Massachusetts, was born in Shirley,
in that state, in 1819. When about seven
teen years of age she began to write for the
literary and religious journals, and in 1838
she edited the first volume of The Rose of
Sharon, an annual, of which nine other vol
umes were afterward issued under her direc
tion. She also edited for several years The
Ladies' Repository, a monthly magazine of
religion and letters, published in Boston. Be
sides her numerous contributions to The New-
Yorker, The New World, The Tribune, The
Knickerbocker, andother periodicals,she pub
lished, in the ten years from 1838 to 1848,
The Palfreys, »,J!eii Clifford or the Genius
of Reform, The Poetry of Woman, Spring
Flowers, Memoir and Poems of Mrs. Julia
H.Scott, The Flower Vase, Fables of Flora,
and The Floral Fortune-Teller. These are
small volumes, and two or three of them con
sist in part of extracts ; but they are all illus
trative of a delicate apprehension of beauty
and truth. She died on the ninth of July, 1848.
THE SUPREMACY OF GOD.
THE clouds broke solemnly apart, and, mass
By mass, their heavy darkness bore away
With sullen mutterings, leaving mountain-pass
And rocky defile open to the day.
The pinnacles of Zion glittering lay
In the rich splendor of Jehovah's light,
Which, pouring down with a meridian sway,
Bathed mouldering tower and barricaded height
In floods of dazzling rays, bewildering to the sight !
God shone upon the nations. In the West
The owl-like Druid saw the brightening rays,
And muffling his gray robes across his breast,
Strode like a phantom from the coining blaze.
Old Odin, throned amid the polar haze,
Heard the shrill cry of Vala on the blast,
And glancing southward with a wild amaze,
Saw God's bright banner o'er the nations cast,
Then to his dim old halls retreated far and fast.
But nearer yet, and quivering in the blaze
That wrapped Olympus with a shroud of glory,
Great Jove rose up, the pride of Rome's proud days,
His awful head with centuries grown hoary.
His sceptre reeking and his mantle gory !
Great Jove, the dread of each inferior god,
Renowned in song, immortalized in story,
No longer shook Olympus with his nod, [trod.
But shivering like a ghost, down, down to hades
Egyptian Isis, from the mystic rites
Of her voluptuous priesthood shrank in awe,
Mazed by the splendor throned on Zion's heights,
More dreadful than the flame which Israel saw
Break forth from Sinai when God gave the law !
To her more dreadful, for beneath its sway
She saw, with prophet gaze, how soon her power
Must, liKe the brooding night-haze, melt away,
And leave her where the mists of ages lower —
The grim ghosts of a dream mocked in the noon-
t'de hour.
And gentler deities — the spirits bright
That haunted mountain glen and woodland shade,
That watched o'er sleeping shepherds thro' the night
And blest at early dawn the bright-eyed maid — •
The nymphs and dryads of the fount and glade,
The best divinities of home and hearth,
These, with an exile footstep, slowly strayed,
And lingered by each haunt of olden mirth,
Till their bright forms grew dim, and vanished from
the earth.
Now Gon is Goo ! The Alpine summit rings
With the loud echoes of Jehovah's praise;
And from the valley where the cow-boy sings,
Go up to God alone his votive lays.
To him the mariner at midnight prays ;
To him uplifts the yearnings of his soul ;
And where the day-beam on the snow-peak plays,
And where the thunders o'er the. desert roll,
His praise goes swelling up, and rings from pole
to pole.
His Spirit animates the lowliest flower,
And nerves the sinews of the loftiest sphere,
In every globule of the falling shower,
In each transition of the varied year,
Its life, and light, and wondrous power appear;
It burns all-glorious in the noonday sun,
And from the moonbeams forth serenely clear;
Or, when the day is o'er, and eve begun,
Flin-s forth the radiant flag no other god hath won.
All hail, Jehovah ! Hail, supremest God !
Where'er the whirlwind stalks upon the seas,
Where'er the giant thunderbolt hath trod,
Or turned a furrow for the summer breeze,
Where liquid cities round Spitzbergen freeze,
And lift their ice-spires to the electric light,
Or soft Italian skies and flowering trees
Their balmy odors and bright hues unite —
There art thou, LOUD of LOVE, unrivalled in thy
might.
SARAH E. MAYO.
Praise, praise to thee from every breathing thing,
And from the temples of adoring hearts
Science to thee her sky-reaped fruits shall bring,
And Commerce rear thine altars in her marts.
Thou shalt be worshipped of the glorious Arts,
And sought by Wisdom in her dim retreat ;
The student, brooding o'er his mystic charts,
Shall mark the track of thy starsandalled feet, [seat,
Till, through the zodiac traced, it mounts thy mercy, j
Praise,praise to Jliee from peaceful home and hearth,
From -hearts of humble hope and meek desire;
Praise from the lowly and the high of earth,
From palace-hall and frugal cottage-fire.
We can not lift our spirit-yearnings higher,
Nor speed them upward to a loftier goal :
Then let us each with fervent thoughts aspire
To cast aside the chain of earth's control, [soul.
And stand in. God's own light, communers with God's
THE LAST LAY.
'Tis the last touch — the last! and never more
By the low-singing stream, or violet dell,
Never beside the blue pond's grassy shore,
Nor in the woodlands where the fountains swell,
Oh, never more shall this wild harp resound
To the light touches of impulsive Thought!
No longer, echoed on the winds around,
Shall float those strains with hum an passion fraught;
Never, oh, never more !
'Tis the last touch ! Oh, mighty Thought, return
To thy deep, hidden fountains, and draw thence
Wordsthatthro'all the heart'slonedepthsshall burn;
Words, that inwrought with hope and love intense,
Shall thrill and shake the soul, as God's own voice
Shakes the high heavens and thrills the silent earth.
Bring forth proud words of triumph, and rejoice
That thy dear gift of song a holier birth
Shall find, when this is o'er !
Too much in earlier days, departing soul,
Thy song hath been of weakness and of tears;
Too much it yielded to the wild control
Of Love's unuttered dreams and shadowy fears ;
And yet some strains of triumph have been heard,
Some words of faith and hope that reached high
As the low warble of the summer bird, [Heaven ;
Singing away the hours of golden even, '
Blends with the cascade's roar !
Let it be loftier now ! a strain to cleave
The vaulted arch above; a hymn of hope,
Of joy, of deathless faith, for those who grieve;
High words of trust to fearful hearts that grope
Through clouds and darkness to a midnight tomb.
Father of Love, thine energy impart
To a frail spirit hovering o'er its doom !
Nerve with o'ermasteriug faith this weary heart
Thy mysteries to explore.
If T have suffered in the mournful past ;
If withered hopes were on my spirit laid ;
If love, the beautiful, the bright, were cast
Along my pathway but to droop and fade ;
If the chill shadows of the grave were hung
In life's young morning o'er my sunny way —
I thank thee, O my God, that I have clung
To those eternal things that ne'er decay;
E'en to thy love and truth !
Now on the threshold of the grave I stand,
One lingering look alone cast back to earth ;
One lingering look to that beloved land
WThere human feeling had its tearful birth ;
There stand the loved, with earnest eyes and words,
Calling me back to life's sweet gushing streams ;
They stand amid the flowers and singing birds,
And where the fountai n o'er the bright moss gleams,
All flushed with buoyant youth.
They woo me back. I see their soft eyes melt
W^ith a beseeching love that speaks in tears;
Deeply their sorrowing kindness have I felt,
And hid my pangs, that I might soothe their fears.
But now the seal is set — they can not save;
In vain they hover round this wasting frame:
Let me rest, loved ones, in the peaceful grave,
And leave to earth the little it may claim ;
It can not claim the soul !
Nay, gentle friends, earth can not claim the soul
Upward arid onward its bold flight shall be;
The bosom of Eternal Love its goal,
And light its crown, and bliss its destiny.
As the bright meteor darts along the sky,
Leaving a trail of beauty on its way,
So, winged with energy that can not die,
My soul shall reach the gates of endless day,
And bid them backward roll.
In vain, 0 Death, thine iron grasp is set
On nerves that quiver with delirious pain ;
Claim not thy triumph o'er the spirit yet,
For thou shalt die, but that shall live again.
And thou, 0 Sorrow, that with whetted beak
Hast torn the fibres of a fervent heart,
Thy final doom is riot for me to speak,
Yet thou, too, from thy carnage must depart,
For God recalls his own.
His OWN ! — O Father, mid the budding flowers
And glittering dews of life's unclouded morn,
Where there is thrilling music in the hours
Of gentle hopes and young affections born,
Through all its wanderings from thy holy throne,
Through all its loiterings mid the haunts of Joy,
Hath my frail spirit been indeed thine own,
By ties that Time nor Death can e'er destroy —
Thine, Father, thine alone !
Shall it not still be thine, more nobly thine,
When from the ruins of young Hope it soars,
And, entering into life and peace divine,
Feels the full worth of what it now deplores?
No sorrows there shall stain its gushing springs ;
No human frai ties cloud its joyous way;
The bird that soars on renovated wings,
And bathes its crest where dawns the golden day,
Shall be less tree and pure.
And more than this: with vision all serene,
Undimmed by tears, and bounded not by clouds,
With naught thy goodness and its gaze between,
And where no mystery thy purpose shrouds,
The soul, the glorious soul, in works of IOVK,
Shall seek, and only seek, to do thy will ;
Highborn and holy shall its efforts prove,
Thy bright designs and glory to fulfil,
While thou and thine endure
300
SARAH E. MAYO.
THE BEGGAR'S DEATH-SCENE.
OXK parting glance the weary day-god throws ;
See how along the mountain ridge it glows,
Shoots through the forest aisles, transmutes the rills,
And kindles up the old rock-crested hills !
It falls upon a peaceful woodland scene —
It lights the moaning hrook and banks of green,
Streams o'er the beggar's long, loose, silvery hair,
Who, dying, lies upon the greensward there !
All day in weakness, weariness, and pain,
The old man 'neath those drooping boughs hath lain ;
The birds above him singing, and the breeze
Hustling the abundant foliage of the trees;
The wild-flowers o'er him bending, and the air
Stroking with gentle touch his long white hair ;
The bees around him murmuring, and the stream
Mingling its music with his dying dream
A vision blessed him ! Through his silver hair
He felt the touch of fingers, soft and fair,
And o'er him flowed the glory of an eye
Outshining all the b!ueness of the sky.
" Sweet, sainted One! and dost thou love me yet 1
I knew, I knew thou couldst not quite forget !
I knew, I knew that thou wouldst come at last,
To kiss my lips and tell me all is past !"
A glow of tiarisport lit his closing eye;
He raised his arms exulting toward the sky;
A rosy tint like morning's earliest streak
Flushed in celestial softness o'er his ch^ek,
Then paled away ; the sunbeam, too, that shone
Upon his reverend head, had softly gone.
Then stooped the Vision, clasped him to her breast,
And bore his spirit up to endless rest
TYPES OF HEAVEN.
WHY love I the lily-bell
Swinging in the scented dell?
Why love I the wood-notes wild,
Where the sun hath faintly smiled ]
Daises, in their beds secure,
Gazing out so meek and pure ]
Why love I the evening dew
In the violet's bell of blue]
Why love I the vesper star,
Trembling in its shrine afar ?
Why love I the summer night
Softly weeping drops of light ]
Why to me do woodland springs
Whisper sweet and holy things]
Why does every bed of moss
Tell me of my Savior's cross]
Why in every dimpled wave
Smiles the light from o'er the grave 1
Why do rainbows, seen at even,
Seem the glorious paths to heaven 1
Why are gushing streamlets fraught
With the notes from angels caught]
Uan ye tell me why the wind
Uringeth seraphs to mv mind ]
Is it not that faith hath bound
Beauties of all form and sound
To the dreams that have been jjiven
Of the holy things of heaven ]
Are they not bright links that bind
Sinful souls to Sinless Mind ]
From the lowly violet sod,
Links are lengthened unto God.
All of holy — stainless — sweet —
That on earth we hear or meet,
Are but tvpes of that pure love
Brightly realized above.
THE SHADOW-CHILD.
WHENCE came this little phantom
That flits about my room —
That's here from early morning
Until the twilight gloom ]
For ever dancing, dancing,
She haunts the wall and floor,
And frolics in the sunshine
Around the open door.
The ceiling by the table
She makes her choice retreat
For there a little human girl
Is wont to have her seat.
They take a dance together —
A crazy little jig;
And sure two baby witches
Ne'er ran so wild a rig !
They pat their hands together
With frantic jumps and springs,
Until you almost fancy
You catch the gleam of wings.
Shrill shrieks the human baby
In the madness of delight,
And back return loud echoes
From the little shadow sprite.
At morning by my bedside
When first the birdies sing,
Up starts the little phantom
With a merry laugh and spring.
She woos me from my pillow
With her little coaxing arms ;
I go where'er she beckons —
A victim to her charms.
At night I still am haunted
By glimpses of her face;
Her features on my pillow
By moonlight I can trace.
Whence came this shadow-baby
That haunts my heart and home 1
What kindly hand hath sent her,
And wherefore hath she come I
Long be her dancing image
Our guest by night and day.
For lonely were our dwelling
If she were now away.
Far happier hath our home been,
More blest than e'er before,
Since first that little shadow
Came gliding through our door.
SARAH C. MAYO.
301
UDOLLO.
So sweet the fount of Thura sings,
'T is said below a maid there is,
Who strikes a lyre of silver strings
To spirit symphonies.
A youth once sought that fountain's sidf
Udollo, of the golden hair ;
He cast a garland in the tide.
And thus invoked the maiden there:
" Oh, maid of Thura ! from thy halls
Of gleaming crystal deign to rise !
The golden-haired Udollo calls,
And yearns to gaze within thine eyes
Fain would he touch that magic lyre
Whose echoes he has heard above,
And kindle every dulcet wire
With an adoring, burning love.
Come, maid of Thura, from thy halls;
The golden-haired Udollo calls !"
" Youth of the flaming, lucent eye,
Youth of the lily hand and brow,
Udollo ! I have heard thy cry ;
I rise before thee now !"
" Oh, maid with eyes of river-blue,
With amber tresses dropped with gold,
With foam-white bosom veiled from view
Too close'y by the rainbow's fold,
Oh, maid of Thura ! let my hand
Receive from thine the silver lyre ;
Athwart thy white arm, Tris-spanned,
1 see one glittering, trembling wire !
That trembling wire I would invoke,
Ere to thy touch it cease to quiver ;
The strain by thy sweet fingers woke
I would prolong' for ever!"
" Udollo, heed ! The mortal hand
That o'er that lone chord dare to stray,
Shall light a flaming, quenchless brand,
To burn his very heart away.
Yet take the lyre ! and I thy flowers
Will wear upon my heart for ever;
That heart henceforth through long, lone hours,
In silent wo must bleed and quiver!
Enough if thou, oh, beauteous love,
Shalt find delight in Thura's lyre ;
Thy hand mid all its strings may rove,
But ah ! wake not the fatal wire !"
The youth, whose eye with rapture glowed,
Quick seized the lyre from Thura's hand ;
How silent at that moment flowed
The fountain o'er the listening sand !
Upon his coal-black steed he leaped,
Struck gayly through the ringing wood,
And, as he went, he boldly swept
His lyre to every passing mood.
But hark ! A low, sweet symphony
Rose softly from the charmed wire ;
Unlike all mortal harmony,
Unlike all human fire!
Hope, eager hope — love, burning love —
Desire, the pure, the high desire —
And joy, and all the thoughts that move,
Gushed wildly from that lyre !
And as Udollo's music died
Amid the columned aisles away,
That wondrous chord swelled far and wide
Its sweet and ravishing lay.
Still grew, at last, the trembling string —
Its wandering echoes back returned,
And round the lone chord gathering
In visible glory burned.
But in Udollo's soul died not
The echoes of the golden strain :
A love — a wo — he knew not what,
Flamed up within his brain ;
But never more his hand could wake,
By roving mid its sister wires,
The string whose symphony could shake
His spirit to its central fires.
But sometimes when, all calm above,
The moon bent o'er its gleaming strings,
A strain of soft, entrancing love
Waved o'er him, like a seraph's wings ;
And sometimes when the midnight gloom
Allowed no wandering ray of light,
A deep, low music filled the room,
And almost flamed upon his sight.
And for this rare and fitful strain
He waited with intense desire ;
There centred, in delirious pain,
His spirit's all-devouring fire.
As round one glowing point on high,
We sometimes mark the electric light,
From the whole bosom of the sky,
In one bright, flaming crown unite,
So round that inward, fixed desire,
Concentred all Udollo's life ;
His dark eye glowed like molten fire,
Beneath the fevered strife.
One night, when long the lyre had slept,
Udollo's passion, like a sea
Of red-hot lava, madly swept
His soul on to its destiny.
In the deep blackness of that hour
When spectres walk, he seized the lyre,
And with a seraph's tuneful power
Awoke the tuneful wire !
Oh, Thura's maid ! where wert thou then,
When mortal hand presumed to strike
The chords that only gods, not men,
Have power to waken as they like ?
A fire shot through Udollo's frame
As shoots the lightning's forked dart ;
It lit a hot and smothered flame
Within his deepest heart.
He felt it in its slow, sure path,
Consume his quivering nerves away ;
Oh, could he but have checked its wrath,
Or ceased that fearful strain to play !
His fingers, cleaving to the wire,
Had lost communion with his will;
Within him burnt the immortal fire,
The heart, the life destroyer still '
^ays, weeks, and months, whirled on and on
No hope by day, nor rest by night •
302
SARAH C. MAYO.
Only the same wild, frantic tone,
Increasing in its woful might.
Intensely still, like lonely stars
Far off in some black crypt of sky,
Like Sirius, or like fiery Mars,
Glowed wild Udollo's eye.
His form to shadowy hue and line
Slow shrunk and faded, day by day ;
He seemed like some corroded shrine,
Eaten by liquid fire away.
At last, in utter wreck and wo,
Back to the fountain's brink he crept;
His golden hair, now white as snow,
Far down his bosom swept.
Silent the clouded waters flowed ;
The silver sand was washed away ;
No lily on its borders blowed ;
In lonely gloom it lay.
" Oh, maid of Thura ! hear my cry ;
Back to thy hands thy lyre I bring :
Take it, oh, take it, ere I (lie,
For heart and soul are perishing !"
No form uprose, no murmur stole
Responsive from the gloomy tide ;
Hoarsely he heard the waters roll ;
Faintly the low winds sighed.
He sank upon the fountain's brink;
His hand fell listless on the wave ;
He heard the lyre, slow bubbling, sink
Deej) in its liquid grave.
The fire went out within his breast;
The tremor of his nerves was still ;
As peacefully he sank to rest
As a tired infant will.
A radiant bow of sun and dew,
Of blended vapors, white and red,
Up from the fountain's bosom flew,
And hung its beauty o'er his head.
And from the waves a strain uprose,
Delicious as an angel's song ;
And this the burden at its close :
" How sweet such dreamless, deep repose
To him who sins and suffers Ion"- !"
CROSSING THE MOOR.
I AM thinking of the glen, Johnny,
And the little gushing brook —
Of the birds upon the hazel copsej
And violets in the nook.
I am thinking how we met, Johnny,
Upon the little bridge :
\ ou had a garland on your arm
Of flag-flowera and of sedge.
Vou placed it in my hand, Johnny,
And held my hand in yours;
tfou only thought of that, Johnny,
But talked about the flower;-.
We lingered Ions a'one, Johnny,
Above mat shaded stream;
We stood as though we were entranced
In some delicious drea;n.
It was not all a dream, Johnny,
The love we thought of then,
For it hath been our life and light
For threescore years and ten.
But ah ! we dared not speak it,
Though it lit our cheeks and eyes;
So we talked about the news, Johnny,
The weather, and the skies.
At last I said, " Good night, Johnny !"
And turned to cross the bridge,
Still holding in my trembling hand
The pretty wreath of sedge.
But you ca:i.e on behind, Johnny,
And drew my arm in yours,
And said, '• You must not go alone
Across the barren moors."
Oh, had they been all flowers, Johnny,
And fu'l of singing birds,
They could not have seemed fairer
Than when listening to those words !
The new moon shone above, Johnny,
. The sun was nearly set ;
The grass that crisped beneath our feet
The dew had slightly wet :
One robin, late abroad, Johnny,
Was winging to its nest ;
I seem to see it now, Johnny,
The sunshine on its breast.
You put your arm around me,
You clasped my hand in yours,
You said, " So let me guard you
Across these lonely moors."
At length we reached the field, Johnny,
In sight of father's door ;
We felt that we must part there ;
Our eyes were brimming o'er;
You saw the tears in mine, Johnny,
I saw the tears in yours :
"You've been a faithful guard, Johnny,"
I said, "across the moors."
Then you broke forth in a gush, Johnny,
Of pure and honest love,
While the moon looked down upon you
From her holy throne above,
And you said, " We need a guide, Ellen,
To lead us o'er life's moors ;
I've chosen you for mine, Ellen,
Oh, wou'd that I were yours !"
We parted with a kiss, Johnny,
The first, but not the last ;
I feel the rapture of it, yet.
Though threescore years have passed;
And you kissed my golden curls, Johnny,
That now are si: very gray,
And whispered, •• \Vc are one, Ellen,
Until our dying day !"
That dying day is near, Johnny,
But we are not dismayed ;
WTe have but one dark moor to cross,
We need we be afraid ?
We've had a hard life's row. Johnny,
But our heavenly rest is sure;
And sweet the love that waits us there,
When we have crossed the moor !
SARAH S. JACOBS.
Miss JACOBS is a native of Rhode Island,
and is a daughter of the late Rev. Bela Ja
cobs, a prominent Baptist clergyman. She
has recently resided at Cambridgeport, in
Massachusetts. Her poems are serious and
fanciful, and evince cultivation and taste.
Benedetta is one of her happiest composi
tions, and it is characteristic of her most
usual tone and manner. There is no collec
tion of her writings.
THE CHANGELESS WORLD.
of old ti
"— Solomo
It hath been already
that this world changes not; that still
Its beauty and its sorrows are the same ;
Ever the torrent seems to wear the hill,
And the sun dries the torrent But I came —
The hill was there, nor was the torrent tame,
But, sparkling cooler down the mountain-side,
For that it scorned the great sun's thirsty flame,
Its eager tusk continually it plied,
While swelled the lofty hill in unabated pride.
The forest-trees are transient things and frail ;
(So the book to'.d me, ere I closed the page ;)
Last year the willow-leaves were wan and pale :
I '11 make to their last place a pilgrimage,
And changed, dead trees shall read a lesson sage
Of change and death. No paler than before
I found the willow-leaves, nor sign of age
Within t'.ie woods ; immortal green they wore,
And the strong, mighty roots the giant trunks up
bore.
The rock endureth with its mantle mossy,
Nature's soft velvet for the poor man's tread ;
The grass abideth tapering and g'ossy.
And from the butterfly you thought was dead,
Lo ! not a grain of shining dust is fled.
But clouds, and snows, and subtle harmonies,
And western winds with dewy perfumes fed,
And shadows and their twins, realities,
And fickle human hearts — sure there is change in
these.
The gentle air fanned Sappho's fevered cheek,
That seems its virgin kiss to breathe on mine ;
That cloud is not new-born : its roseate streak
Decked a sweet sunset in fair Palestine,
When Abram's Sarah 'neath the shadowing pine,
Watching its glories, showed them to her lord,
That night the beaming messengers divine
Came dawn, and Heaven sat at earthly board,
Gladdening the patriarch's heart with high prophetic
word.
Wears not the sky the vaulted majesty
That greatly circled greater Homer's brow]
And the soft murmurs of the sleepy sea
Soothed Dante's soul of storms. The heavens
allow
No novel splendors. Every star that now
Looks miracles of beauty, in intense
And steely radiance, saw the Chaldee bow;
The princely, poet heart, whose finer sense
Thrilled nightly the Pleiades' sweet influence.
But sun, and cloud, river, and tree, and stream,
Rock, wind, and mountain — earth, and sea, and
Ephemeral things, and perishable seem [heaven,
To the strong human nature God has given.
The breast that fired man first — the wondrous
leaven
That makes " red clay" lord of its kindred earth,
Immortal in its essence, lasteth even
As He lasts whose great impulse sent it forth :
There is no change in man since the first man had
birth.
For youthful lovers still in paradise
Walk hand in hand, like those of early day;
Till the stern-missioned angel shall arise,
The vision and the music pass away.
The heart's short summer gone, no effort may
In festive pomp of dewy fruit and flowers
The frost-struck and the faded world array.
Self-exiled are we, too, from Eden's bowers,
And Adam's wanderings and Eve's woes are
ours.
Still for her infant children Rachel weeps ;
Still sighs sad Ruth " amid the alien corn ;"
Still Aiah's daughter generous vigils keeps;
The sire still hails his prodigal's return ;
Still Peter's soul with penitence is torn.
Humanity has lost no grief nor joy :
Partings are painful now as on the morn.
When Hector bade, upon the walls of Troy,
Andromache farewell, and kissed his blooming
boy.
To meet is bliss, as when, beside old Nile,
Joseph his soul of tenderness outpoured ;
Still Stephen dies with calm, forgiving smile,
Still radiant Esther braves her tvrant lord.
No change, no change ! Upon the self-same cnoul
Life's overture is played ; life's pattern wrought
In the same figures — wearisome, abhorred.
"Butwe shall allbechang'd." Such sounds Icaught.
And blessed both Tarsus and Damascus in my
thought
30.T
304
SARAH S. JACOBS.
BENEDETTA.
Br an old fountain once at day's decline
We stood. The winged breezes made
Short flights melodious through the lowering vine,
The lindens flung a golden, glimmering shade,
And the old fountain played.
I a stern stranger — a sweet maiden she,
And beautiful as her own Italy.
At length she smiled ; her smile the silence broke,
And my heart finding language, thus it spoke ;
" Whenever Benedetta moves,
Motion then all Nature loves •
WThen Benedetta is at rest,
Quietness appeareth best.
She makes me dream of pleasant things,
Of the young corn growing;
Of butterflies' transparent wings
In the sunbeams rowing ;
Of the summer dawn
Into daylight sliding;
Of Dian's favorite fawn
Among laurels hiding;
Of a movement in the tops
Of the most impulsive trees;
Of cool, glittering drops
God's gracious rainbow sees ;
Of pale moons ; of saints
Chanting anthems holy ;
Of a cloud that faints
In evening slowly ;
Of a bird's song in a grove ,
Of a rosebud's love ;
Of a lily's stem and leaf;
Of dew-silvered meadows;
Of a child's first grief;
Of soft-floating shadows ;
Of the violet's breath
To the moist wind given ;
Of early death
And heaven."
I ceased : the maiden did not stir,
Nor speak, nor raise her bended head ;
And the green vines enfoliaged her,
And the old fountain played.
Then from the church beyond the trees
Chimed the bells to evening prayer :
Fervent the devotions were
Of Benedetta on her knees ;
And when her prayer was over,
A most spiritual air
Her whole form invested,
As if God did love her,
And his smile still rested
On her white robe and flesh,
So innocent and fresh —
Touching where'er it fell
With a glory visible.
She smiled, and crossed horself, and smiled again
Upor< the heretic's sincere " Amen !"
" Buona notte," soft she said or sung
ft was the same on that sweet southern tongue —
And passed. I blessed the faultless face,
All m composed gentleness arrayed;
Then took farewell of the secluded place :
And the tall lindens flung a glimmering shade,
And the old fountain played.
And this was spring. In the autumnal weather,
One golden afternoon I wandered thither;
And to the vineyards, as I passed along,
Murmured this fragment of a broken song:
" I know a peasant girl serene —
What though her home doth lowly lie !
The woods do homage to their queen,
The streams flow reverently nigh
Benedetta, Benedetta !
" Her eyes the deep, delicious blue
The stars and I love to look through ;
Her voice the low, bewildering tone,
Soft winds and she have made their own—
Benedetta, Benedetta !"
She was not by the fountain — but a band
Of the fair daughters of that sunny land.
Weeping they were, and as they wept they threw
Flowers on a grave. Then suddenly I knew
Of Benedetta dead :
And, weeping too
O'er beauty perished,
Awhile with her companions there I stood,
Then turned and went back to my solitude ;
And the tall lindens flung a glimmering shade.
And the old fountain played.
A VESPER.
SEREXEST Evening ! whether fall
In arrowy gold thy sunset beams,
Or dimmer radiance maketh all
Like landscapes seen in dreams.
I joy apart with thee to walk,
I joy alone with thee to talk.
Writh speech is thy clear blue endowed,
Thine archipelagoes of cloud ;
Of sweetest music and most rare
I hear the utterances there,
And nightly does my" being rise
To fonder converse with thy skies.
Then from thy mists my home I date,
Or, with thy tires incorporate,
Am lightly to the zenith swinging,
Or pouring glory on the woods,
Or through some cottage window flinging
The sunset's blessed floods.
Mine is the beauty of the hour —
All mine — if I confess its power.
Behold the vast an iy of tents
For me to sentinel to-night !
An instant — this magnificence
Has faded out of sight.
The tents are struck, the warriors' march
Subsides along the stately arch.
I saw the sword their leader drew
Beneath the banner's crimson edge :
'T was lightning to the common view,
To me a solemn pledge
Unbroken as the smile of Him
Who rules those cloudy cherubim.
SARAH S. JACOBS.
The sun, his mirrored smile, not yet
Upon the loving earth has set.
Happy in his caressing fb'd,
The cottage roofs are domes of gold.
To sip the misty surf he stoops ;
OnUirios of light he scoops
In sombrest turf, and still for me
.Alone his shining seems to be :
Aline are his thousand rays that hum,
I love and I appropriate ;
Who loves enough creates reiurn,
Nor can be isolate.
UBI AMOR, 1BI FIDES.
" ALL faith from human hearts is fled,"
I to that gentle lady said ;
" Faith is an idle dream, I see,
I'll trust in none, none trusteth me!"
And I was moody, she was still ;
Our souls were out of tune,
Because I spoke such words of ill
That summer afternoon.
My lonely heart felt sick and weak —
The gentle lady did not speak.
So silently the path we took
Along the common, by the brook,
And walked together on the shore,
As we had often walked before ;
The sky was fair, the sands were white-
Smooth flowed the silvery sea :
I watched the snowy sea-gulls' flight,
And so perhaps did she,
As in the sunshine's parting glow
The fair things sparkled to and fro.
Methought I heard the ocean moan,
In sorrow to be left alone ;
And I rejoiced that sea and sky
Should be bereaved as well as I.
Our homeward path we could not miss,
Along a narrow ledge.
And by a beetling precipice
Close to the water's edge —
A hoary eminence and gray,
Familiar with the ocean's spray.
The ocean's spray that o'er it dashed,
By strong east winds to madness lashed,
Striving to reach the wintry stars.
Kind Summer sought to hide the scars
Of the huge rock's misshapen side
With light fern's feathery nod,
With yellow co'.t's-foot simple pride,
And wealth of golden-rod.
I liked in that stern cliff to see
A brother-scorn and savagery !
Thus went we in the evening holy,
Atang the sea-line pacing slowly,"
When sudden, as from heaven sent,
And free from earthly element,
Stood on the crag a creature fair,
Of bearing free and bold,
Like wings of angels on the air
His curls of shining gold,
20
And God had given to the face
A beautiful and perfect grace.
Nothing so beautiful before
I saw, and shall see nevermore ;
And I were loath to hear again.
A to'ie -o full of stifled pain
As when her eyes the lady raised,
Her hand her forehead shading,
And under that fair screening gazed
Upon the sunset's fading,
And knew between us and the sun
That glorious child, her own — her one.
His gaze was on the distance fixed,
Where skies and seas their azure mixed •,
Perchance his stainless childhood's thought
The meaning of the ocean caught,
Arid revelations never given
When the world's vapors dim
Have floated between us and heaven,
Were present then with him.
Plain spoke the sea's majestic roll
In the white chambers of his soul.
Safe stood he, while no downward glance
Broke the glad tenor of his trance ;
For lofty thoughts are angel-bands
With charge to bear us in their hands.
'T is sense of self that peril flings
Around life's lonely peak,
And causes mortal shudderings
As in that infant weak.
No more the seer — the angel bright —
A child is on that dizzy height.
Then rang the lady's silvery tone:
" Mamma will come, my love, my own !
Look up and see the sky's bright hue,
Until mamma can see it too."
Alas ! ere we the summit gain,
The boy will lose his hold ;
The chilling fingers of the Main
Uncurl those locks of gold ;
And Death will kiss the eyelids fair
Where late a mother's kisses were !
She saw that I could climb no more,
So far the hoar crag jutted o'er;
Her look grew strange with agony,
And hope died in her fading eye.
Still the white lips spoke mild and clear
" Stand now upright, and spring !"
The boy, without one pause of fear,
Or single questioning,
Leaped downward to her glad embrace,
And in her bosom hid his face !
Wounded against the rocks I found her,
A happy paleness breathing round her,
Half like a woman dear and faint,
Half with the look of some sweet saint
Fondly she clasped her boy the while.
Glad tears were in her eyes ;
Then unto me with gentle smile
She said, reproachful-wise,
And closer clasped that cooing dove—
" They dwell together, Faith oml Lov« *
LUELLA J. B. CASE.
Miss BARTLETT, a daughter of the late
Hon. Lev; Bartlett, and a grand-daughter of
the revolutionary patriot, Josiah Bartlett,
was born in Kingston, New Hampshire, and
in 1333 was married to Mr. E. Case, then
of Lowell, and more recently of Portland,
Maine, and Cincinnati, Ohio. Her poems
and prose writings have nearly all been pub
lished in miscellanies edited by her friend,
the late Mrs. Edgerton Mayo.
THE INDIAN RELIC.
YEARS ago was made thy grave
By the Ohio's languid wave,
When primeval forests dim
Echoed to the wild bird's hymn ;
From that lone and quiet bed,
Rel'c of the unknown dead,
Why art thou, a mouldering thing,
Here amongst the bloom of spring 1
Violets gem the fresh, young grass,
•Softest breezes o'er thee pass ;
Nature's voice, in tree and flower,
Whispers of a waking hour ;
Village sounds below are ringing,
Birds around thee joyous singing —
Thou, upon this height alone,
No reviving power hast known.
Yet wert thou of human form,
Once with all life's instincts warm —
Quailing at, the storm of grief
Like the frailest forest leaf:
With a bounding pulse — an eye
Brightening o'er its loved ones nigh,
Till beneath this cairn of trust,
Dust was laid to blend with dust.
When the red man ruled the wood,
And his frail canoe yon flood,
Hast thou held the unerring bow
That the antlered head laid low 1
Avid in battle's fearful strife,
Swung the keen, remorseless knife 1
Or. with woman's loving arm,
Shielded helplessness from harm 1
Silent — sik-nt ! Naught below
O'er thy past a gleam can throw :
Or, in frame of sinewy chief,
Woman, born for love and grief-
Thankless toil, or haughty sway
Sped life's brief and fitful day.
Like the autumn's sapless bough
Crumbling o'er thee, thou art now.
Rest ! A yoi)U<T. organic world,
Into sudden ruin hurled,
Casts its fragments o'er thy tomb,
Midst the woodland's softened gloom
Diod those frail things long ago,
But the soul no death can know:
Rest ! thy grave, with silent preaching,
Humble Hope and Faith is teaching.
Rest ! Thy warrior tribes so bold
Roam no more their forests old,
And the thundering fire-canoe
Sweeps their placid waters through :
Science rules where Nature smiled,
Art is toiling in the wild ;
And their mouldering cairns alone
Tell the tale of races gone.
Thus, o'er Time's mysterious sea,
Being moves perpetually :
Crowds of swift, advancing waves
Roll o'er vanished nation's graves ;
But immor'al treasures sweep
Still unharmed that solemn deep :
Progress holds a tireless way —
Mind asserts her deathless swav.
ENERGY IN ADVERSITY.
Hath earth's ceaseless change
Trampled on thy heart 1
Faint not, for that restless range
Soon will heal the smart.
Trust the future: time will prove
Earth hath stronger, truer love.
Bless thy God — the heart is not
An abandoned urn,
Where, all lonely and forgot,
Dust and ashes mourn :
Bless him, that his mercy brings
Joy from out its withered things.
Onward, for the truths of God —
Onward, for the right !
Firmly let the field be trod,
In life's coming fight:
Heaven's own hand, will lead thee on,
Guard thee till thy task is done !
Then will brighter, sweeter flowers
Blossom round thy way,
Than ere sprung in Hope's glad boweib,
In thine early day :
And the rolling years shall briniz
Strength and h-a ing on their wing.
306
LUELLA J. B. CASE.
307
LA REVENANTE.
OH, look on me, dear one, with love and not fear :
It is quenchless affection alone brings me here.
Look on me ! I come not in mystery and gloom,
"With the pale winding-sheet and the hue of the tomb.
The mould of the grave casts no stain on my brow,
With the poor, sleeping ashes, my home is not now.
Look on me, thou dear one ! the light of my eye
Is loving and kind as in days long gone by,
When, weeping and weary, thy head on my breast
Was trustingly laid with its sorrows to rest.
Then turn not away, for my face is the same
That oft to thy bedside in infancy came,
And a kiss was its welcome : now what can there be
To make it so fearful and dreadful to thee ]
Doth the life of the spirit, so pure and so high, [eye,
Steal the smile from the cheek, or the love from the
That the mortal must shrink with such pa'sying fear,
To know that the holy and death'ess are near'!
Oh, a far keener pang than what doomed us to part,
Is to feel that my presence sends chill to thy heart !
Though blissful my life as a spirit's can be, [thee;
Its bright hours are swept by fond yearnings for
Soft, musical waves from the Past o'er my soul,
Where never again may the vexed billows roll,
Are wafting emotions so hallowed, yet wild,
That I leave the blesl land to beho'd thee, my child !
Thou hast called me with tears in the still, lonely
And I spoke to thy spirit, but not to thy sight : [night,
Thou hast dreamed of me oft by our own linden tree,
When my kiss on thy cheek was the zephyr to thee !
Thy life since we parted has laid down its glow,'
And year after year has but shed deeper snow;
Whilst thou, from the stern, worldly lore of thy head,
Hast turned with a heart-broken love to the dead :
I knew it, far off in my shadowless sphere, [near ;
And I thought it nn.'ht soothe thee to know I was
But I would not onp fear o'er thy tried spirit cast
For all the deep, measureless love of the past:
Farewell ! Thou wi.t see me no more, but the spell
Of affection shall guard thee, poor trembler, farewell !
A DE.A.TH SCENE.
'Tis evening's hush: the first faint shades are creep-
Thro' the still room, and o'er the curtained bed, [ing
Where lies a weary one, all calmly sleeping,
Touched with the twilight of the land of dread.
Death's cold gray shadow o'er her features falling,
Marks her upon the threshold of the tomb;
Yot from within no siy;ht nor sound appalling,
Comes o'er her spirit with a thought of gloom.
See — on her pa'lid lip bright smiles are wreathing,
While, from the tranquil gladness of her breast,
Sweet, holy words in gentlest tones are breathing:
" Come unto me, and I will give you rest."
Nicrht gathers round — chill, moon'ess, yet with ten-
Mild, radiant stars, like countless angel-eyes, [der,
Bending serenely, from tlieir homes of splendor,
Above the couch where that meek dreamer lies.
The hours wear on: the shaded lamp burns dimmer,
A.nd ebbs that sleeper's breath as wanes the night,
And still with looks of love those soft stars glimmer
Along their pathways of unchanging light.
She slumbers still — and the pale, wasted fingers
Are gently raised, as if she dreamed of prayer;
And on that lip so wan the same smile lingers,
And still those trustful words are trembling there.
The night is done : the cold arid solemn dawning
With stately tread goes up the eastern sky ;
But vain its power, and vain the pomp of morning,
To lift the darkness from that dying eye.
Yet Heaven's full joy is on that spirit beaming-
The saul has found its higher, happier birth,
And brighter shapes flit thro' its blessed dreaming
Than ever gather round the sleep of earth.
The sun is high, but from those pale lips parted,
No more those words float on the languid breath,
Yet still the expression of the happy-hearted
Has triumphed o'er the mournful shades of death.
Thro' the hushed room the midday ray has wended
Its glowing pinion to a pulseless breast :
The gentle sleeper's mortal dreams are ended —
The soul has gone to Him who gives it rest.
DEATH LEADING AGE TO REPOSE.
LEAD him gently — he is weary,
Spirit of the placid brow !
Life is long and age is dreary,
And he seeks to slumber now.
Lead him gently — he is weeping
For the friends he can not see ;
Gently — for he shrinks from sleeping
On the couch he asks of thee !
Thou, with mien of solemn gladness,
With the thought-illumined eye,
Pity thou the mortal's sadness —
Teach him it is well to die.
Time has veiled his eye with blindness,
On thy face it may not dwell,
Or its sweet, majestic kindness
Would each mournful doubt dispel.
Passionless thine every feature,
Moveless is thy Being's calm,
While poor suffering human nature
Knows but few brief hours of balm :
Yet, when life's long strife is closing,
And the grave is drawing near,
How it shrinks from that reposing
Where there comes nor hope nor fear \
Open thou the visioned portal,
That reveals the life sublime,
That within the land immortal
Waits the weary child of Time.
Open thou the land of beauty,
Where the Ideal is no dream,
And the child of patient Duty
Walks in joy's unclouded beam.
Thou, with brow that owns no sorrow,
With the eye that may not weep,
Point him to Heaven's coming morrow-
Show him it is well to sleep !
SARAH T. BO L TON.
(Born 1820).
MRS. BOLTON resides in Ohio, and has been
:i contributor to the Herald of Truth in Cin
cinnati, to the Home Journal in New York,
and to several other periodicals whose ftW<
thors are accustomed to have meaning in
their verses.
LINES, *
SUGGESTED BY A\ ANECDOTE OF PROFESSOR MORSE.*
DIDST thou desire to die and be at rest,
Thou of the noble soul and giant mind ?
Hadst thou grown weary in the hopeless quest
Of blessedness that mortals seldom find 1
Had care and toil and sorrow all combined
To bring that sickness of the soul that mars
The happiness that God for men designed,
Till thy sad spirit spurned its prison-bars,
And pined to soar away amidst the burning stars 1
Perchance an angel sought thee in that hour —
A blessed angel from the world of light,
Teaching submission to Almighty power,
Whose dealings all are equal, just, and right :
Perchance Hope whispered of a future, bright
And glorious in its triumph. Soon it came :
A world, admiring, hailed thee with delight,
And learning joyed to trace thy deathless name
Upon her ponderous tomes in characters of flame.
Thou brightest meteor of a starry age, [wrought
What does the world not owe thee 1 thou hast
For scientific lore a glowing page:
Thy mighty energy of mind has brought
To man a wondrous agent : it has taught
The viewless lightning in its fight sublime,
To bear upon its wing embodied thought,
Warm from its birthplace to the farthest clime,
Annihilating space and vanquishing e'en time.
Didst thou look down into the shadowy tomb,
And crave the privilege to slumber there,
* In a letter to General Morris, dated Trenton Falls, Au
gust 1 1, Mr. N. P. Willis relates the following curious an
ecdote : u Among our feUow-jMMengen up the Mohawk,
we had, i" two adjoining seats, a very impressive con
trast — an insane youth, on his way to an asylum, and the
mind that has achieved the greatest triumph of intellect
in our time. Morse, 01 the electric telegraph, on an errand
connected with the conveyance of thought by lightning.
.....In the course of a brief argument on the expediency
of some provision for putting an end to a defeated anil
hopeless existence, Mr. Morse; said that, ten years ago,
under ill health and discouragement, he would gladly
have availed himself of any divine authorization for ter
minating a life of which the possessor was weary. The
sermon that lay in this chance remark — the loss of price
less discovery to the worl I md the loss of fame and for-
tune to himself, which v\ u,d have followed a death thus
prematurely self-chosen— is valuable enough, I think, to
Justify the invasion of the sacvedness of private conversa
tion which I commit by thus giving it to print. May some
one, a weary of the world, read it to his profit."
j Unhonored and forgotten ? — thou, on whom
Kind Heaven bestowed endowments rich and rare ?
Was life a burden that thou couldst not bear]
A lewon this, to those whose souls have striven
With disappointment, sorrow, and despair,
Until they feed on poison, and are driven
To quench the vital spark that Deity hath given.
And it should teach our restless hearts how dim
And erring is our finite vision here —
Should make us trust, through humble faith, in Him
Who sees alike the distant and the near.
The cloud that seems so sombre, cold, and drear,
May hide a prospect lovely, bright, and clear :
When lightning's flash and winds are wild and high,
No radiant beam of sunlight comes to cheer ;
But when the wrecking tempest has gone by,
God sets the blessed bow of promise in the sky
THE SPIRIT OF TRUTH.
I DREAMED that I saw, on the fair brow of heaven
The star-jewelled veil of a midsummer even ;
I looked, and, as quick as a meteor's birth,
A beautiful Spirit descended to earth.
Her brow wore a halo of light, and her eye
Was bright as the stars and as blue as the sky ;
Her low, silvery voice trembled soft as a spell,
To the innermost chords of the heart, as it fell.
One hand held a banner inscribed with "ACCORD,"
The other, the glorious Word of the Lord :
Then, softly, the beautiful vision did glide
To the palace a rich man had reared in his pride.
Through curtains of crimson the sun's mellow beam
Fell, soft as the tremulous light of a dream,
On all that was gorgeous in nature and art —
On all that could gladden the eye or the heart.
The rich man was clad in fine purple and gold,
The wealth in his coffers might never be told ;
The brows of the servants that waited around
Grew bright when he smiled, and grew pale when
he frowned.
Then did that proud nobleman tremble and start,
As the bright Spirit whispered these words to his
heart :
" If thou wouldst have wealth when life's journey
is o'er,
Sell all that tho hast, and divide with the poor,"
308
SARAH T. BOLTON.
309
She stood in the cell, where the death-breathing air
Was rife with the groans of the prisoner's despair,
As sadly he looked, through the long lapse of time,
To days when his soul was unstained hy a crime.
She pointed away to his Father above — -
She siothed him in accents of pity and love,
And said, as she severed the links of his chain,
" Thy sins are forgiven, transgress not again."
She came in her strength, and the gallows that stood
For ages, all reeking and blackened with blood,
Like a lightning-scared fiend, pointing up to the sky,
Feii prostrate to earth, at the glance of her eye.
She spoke ! old earth heard, and her pulses were still :
"God's holy commandment forbiddeth to kill."
That spirit of beauty, that spirit of might, [light.
Went forth, till the earth was illumined with her
The strong one relenting, was fain to restore [poor:
The spoil he had wrenched from the hand of the
Injustice, oppression, and wrong, fled away,
Before the pure light of millennial day.
The turbulent billows of faction grew calm ;
The lion laid down in the fold with the lamb ;
The ploughshare was forged from the sabre and
sword,
And the mighty bowed down to the sway of the Lord.
The heathen with joy cast his idols away,
And knelt 'neath his own vine and fig tree to pray.
By every kindred, and nation, and tongue,
Glad anthems of praise to Jehovah were sung.
KENTUCKY'S DEAD.*
KENTUCKY, mother of the brave !
Let solemn prayers be said,
And welcome to an honored grave
Thy loved and gallant dead.
Thy gallant dead — they come, they come !
What will thy greeting be 1
The bugle note, the martial drum.
And banners waving free 1
No : toll for them the solemn knell,
Let dirges sad be sung,
And be the flag they loved so well
A pall around them flung.
In other days, when freemen bled
In fearful border strife,
* The hones of the Kentnckians who diod under the
tomahawk ;it the river Raisin, in 1812. were conveyed to
the river shore, at Cincinnati, on the 29ih of September,
1848, hy an escort of Cincinnati firemen, and placed in
charge of the Kentucky committee, to whom their recep
tion WHS assigned. They were contained in a wooden
box, painted black, bearing the inscription :
"KKNTUCKY'S GALLANT DKAD.
January 18, 181-2.— River Raisin, Michigan."
The bones of these brave men were found in a com
mon grave, which was accidentally upturned while a
street in Monroe, Michigan, was being graded. The fact
of the skulls being all cloven with the tomahawk, induced
the workmen to make inquiry, and an aged Frenchman,
a survivor of the massacre, knew them as the bones of
the unfortunate Kentuckians— remembering the spot
where they were buried. Information was sent to Ken
tucky, and that state promptly took means for their re-
•noval. The charge was devolved upon Colonel Brooke,
participant in. and survivor of, that unfortunate battle.
When savage tomahawks were red
With unoffending life —
With all the ardor youth imparts,
They sought the battle plain :
Those stalwart forms and noble hearts,
Came never back again.
Oh, they were missed where kindred met
In cottage homes of yore —
Flowers bloomed and died, suns rose and set,
But they returned no more.
Young hopeful hearts in sorrow pined,
Young eyes were wet with tears,
And, fondly mourning, Memory shrined
Their names for weary years.
Theirs was no common battle field,
For savage hearts decreed ;
And savage vengeance there revealed
A most inhuman deed.
A grave to rest in was denied
The brave and gallant slain ;
And foemen left them where they died,
Upon the battle plain.
No voice to soothe, no hand to bless,
The suffering wounded came ;
But they, in all their helplessness,
Were given to the flame.
Where Raisin's sparkling waters glide
Through forest, grove, and glade,
Defending Freedom's soil, they died,
And there their graves were made —
Yes, made beneath the ancient trees,
Deep in the tangled wilds :
Their only requiem was the breeze
Amidst the forest aisles.
The moonbeams came at midnight's hour
And softly trembled there,
And angels made that lonely bower
Their never sleeping care.
And fragrant flowers, of brilliant dyes,
Bloomed o'er the silent sod,
And lifted up their tearful eyes
Like mourners to their God.
The world has changed ; for many years
Have come since then and gone,
With joys and woes, and hopes and fear,
And still they slumber on.
The pleasant homes in which they grew
Are now the stranger's care :
The gay, and beautiful, and true,
And loved — they are not there.
The friends who knew their manly worth
Have passed from time away ;
The children left beside their hearth
Are growing old and gray.
Another generation bears
Their ashes, sad and slow —
Another generation wears
For them the weeds of wo
Thy gallant dead ! oh, hoard thei- dust
Within thy holiest shrine •
It is a proud, a sacred trust —
Their deathless fame is thine !
HANNAH J. WOODMAN.
Miss WOODMAN is the authoress of The
Casket of Gems, and two or three other small
volumes, and she has been for several years
a 'eacher in the public schools of Boston, of
which city she is a native. Many of her pu
ems appeared in the miscellanies edited by
her friend Mrs. Edgarton Mayo. There is
no published collection of them.
THE ANNUNCIATION.
Luke i. -36-38.
SILENCE o'er ancient Judah! 'Twas the hush
Of holy eve, and through the balmy air
There came a trembling and melodious gush
Of softest melody, as if the prayer
Of kneeling thousands had prevailed on high,
And angel choirs were bending to reply.
Man heard the sound of music, and arose,
And cast the mantle of despair away,
And said. " Deliverance comes, forget your woes,
There dawns on Judah her triumphant day."
But, with the so'ernri strain of music, passed
The hopes too flattering and too fair to last.
Not so to one, the humblest of her race —
For to her startled and astonished eye
There came a visitant of matchless grace,
Robed in a garment of celestial dye :
"Fear not, thou highly favored" — thus he sang,
While Heaven's high arches with the echoes rang.
" Fear not, thy God is with thee, and hast poured
The richest of his blessings on thy bead ;
And thou wilt bear a son, on whom the Lord
The fulness of his grace and power will shed :
His name shall be Emmanuel, Mighty One,
Savior of men, and God's anointed Son."
Oh. who can paint the rushing tides of thought
Which swept like lightning through the startled
mind
Of that lone worshipper, whose faith was brought
'I'll us suddenly its utmost verge to find :
It failed not. and the curtain was withdrawn
Which veiled futurity's effulgent dawn.
She rose with brow serene : her eyes fonrot
Their dreamy softness, and were upward cast,
Filled with celestial radiance. Earth had not
The power that glorious prophecy to blast :
"Behold the handmaid of the Lord, and teach
The trembling lip to frame submissive speech !"
Again there floated on the ambient air
That thrilling melody, while countless throngs,
Waving their jjolden censers, heard the prayer,
Which mingled with their own triumphant songs
The vision faded in a sea of light,
And left to earth the still and holy night.
WHEN WILT THOU LOVE ME?
LOVE me when the spring is here,
With its busy bird and bee ;
When the air is soft and clear,
And the heart is full of glee ;
When the leaves and buds are seen
Bursting frsm the naked bough,
Dearest, with a faint serene,
Wilt thou love me then as now 1
When the queenly June is dressed
In her robes so fair and bright ;
When the earth, most richly blessed,
Sleeps in soft and golden light ;
When the sweetest songs are heard
In the forest, on the hill —
When thy soul by these is stirred,
Dearest, wilt thou love me still 1
When the harvest-moon looks out
On the fields of ripened grain ;
When the merry reapers shout
While they glean the burdened plain
When, their labors o'er, they sit
Listening to the night-bird's lay,
May there o'er thy memory flit
Thoughts of one far, far away !
When the winter hunts the bird
From his leafy home and bower ;
When the bee, no longer heard,
Bides the cold, ungenial hour;
When the blossoms rise no more
From the garden, field, and glen i
When our forest joys are o'er,
Dearest, wilt thou love me then 1
Love for ever ! 'tis the spring
Whence our choicest blessings flow !
Angel harps its praises sing.
Angel hearts its secrets know.
When thy feet are turned away
From the busy haunts of men —
When thy feet in Eden strav,
Dearest, wilt thou love me then !
310
SUSAN ARCHER TALLEY.
SUSAN ARCHER TA*LLEY was born in Han
over county, Virginia, where the early years
of her childhood were passed. Her father
was descended from one of those Huguenots
who, escaping the massacre of St. Bartholo
mew, fled to America, and settled in Virginia.
He studied law under the late Judge Robert
Taylor of Norfolk, but on account of ill health
subsequently resigned the practice of his pro
fession, and retired to a place in the imme
diate vicinity of Richmond, where he recent
ly died, and where his family still resides. —
Her mother was a daughter of Captain Ar
cher, of one of the oldest and most distin
guished families of Norfolk.
Miss Talley was remarkable for a preco
city of intellect and an early development of
character. Though of an exceedingly happy
temperament, she rarely mingled with other
children, but would spend most of her time
in reading, in an intense application to study,
or in wandering amid the beautiful woods
and meadows that surrounded her father's
residence. At nine years of age she sudden
ly and entirely lost her hearing, which had
evidently the effect of subduing the natural
joyousness of her disposition, and of produ
cing that dreamy and contemplative tone of
character which has since distinguished her.
It may be said that from this period till she
was sixteen her life was passed in the soli
tude of her chamber, where she seemed to
derive from books a constant and ever in
creasing enjoyment. In consequence of her
extreme diffidence it was not until she was
in her fifteenth year that the nature and force
of her talents were apprehended by her most
intimate associates. A manuscript volume
of her verses now fell under the observation
of her father, who saw in them illustrations
of unlooked-for powers, to the cultivation of
which he subsequently devoted himself with
intelligent and assiduous care while he lived.
When she was about seventeen years of age
some of her poems appeared in The South
ern Literary Messenger, and, yielding to the
wishes of her friends, she has since been a
frequent and popular contributor to that ex»
cellent magazine.
What is most noticeable in the poems of
Miss Talley is their rhythmical harmony,
considered in connexion with her perfect in
sensibility to sound, for a period so long that
she could not have had before its commence
ment any ideas of musical expression or po
etical art. The only instance in literary his
tory in which so melodious a versification
has been attained under similar circumstan
ces is that of James Nack, the deaf and dumb
poet of New York, whose writings were sev
eral years ago given to the public by Mr.
Prosper M. Wetmore. There is not in Mr.
Nack's poems, however, any single compo
sition that can be compared with Ennerslie,
in grace, or variety of cadences, or in ideal
beauty. This poem, without being an imi
tation, will remind the reader of one of the
finest productions of Tennyson.
Miss Talley is remarkable not only for the
peculiar interest of her character, but fur the
variety of her abilities. She is a painter as
well as a poet, and some of the productions
of her pencil have been praised by the best
critics in the arts of design, both for striking
and original conception and for skilful exe
cution. Her friends therefore anticipate for
her a distinguished position among those wo
men who have cultivated painting, and they
find in her pictures the same characteristics
that maik her literary compositions.
Young, and gifted with such unusual pow
ers, she rarely mingles in society beyond the
select circle of friends by whom she is sur
rounded. She finds her happiness in the
quiet pleasures and affections of home. Her
life is essentially that of a poet. Ardent in
temperament, yet shrinkingly sensitive, Avith
a fine fancy which is often warmed into im
agination, and an instinctive apprehension
and love of the various forms of beauty, po
etry becomes the expression of her nature,
and the compensation for that infirmity by
which she is deprived of balf the pleasures
that minister to a fine intelligence.
311
312
SUSAN ARCHER TALLEY.
ENNKRSL1E.
A HOARY tower, grim and high,
All beneath a summer sky,
Where the river glideth by
Sullenly — sullenly ;
Across the wave in slugglish gloom,
Heavy and black the shadows loom,
But the water-lilies brightly bloom
Round about grim Enncrslie.
All upon the bank below
Alders green and willows grow,
That ever sway them to and fro
Mournfully — mournfully ;
Never a boat doth pass that way,
Never is heard a carol gay,
Nor doth a weary pilgrim stray
Down by haunted Enrierslie.
Yet in that tower is a room
From whose oaken-fretted dome
Weird faces peer athwart the gloom
Mockingly — mockingly ;
And there beside the taper's gleam
That maketh darkness darker seem,
Like one that waketh in a dream,
Sits the lord of Ennerslie :
Sitteth in his carved chair —
From his forehead pale and fair
Falleth down the raven hair
Heavily — heavily ;
There is no color on his cheek,
His lip is pa!e — he doth not speak,
And rarely doth his footstep break
The stillness of grim Ennerslie.
From the casement, mantled o'er
With ivy-boughs and lichens hoar,
The shadows creep along the floor
Stealthily — stealthily ;
They glide along, a spectral train,
And rest upon the crimson stain
W'here of old a corpse was lain —
Murdered at grim Ennerslie.
In a niche within the wall,
Where the shadows deepest fall,
Like a coffin and a pall,
Gloomily — gloomily,
Sits an owlet, huge and gray,
That there hath sat for many a day,
And like a ghost doth gaze alway
Upon the lord fof Ennerslie ;
Gazeth with its mystic eyes
Ever in a weird surprise,
Like some demon in disguise,
Ceaselessly — ceaselessly ;
And close beside that haunted nook,
Bendeth o'er an open book,
With a strange and dreamy look,
The pale young lord of Ennerslie.
Mrith a measured step and slow,
At times he paces to and fro,
Muttering in whispers low,
Fitfully— fitfully ;
Or resting in his ancient chair,
Gazing on the vacant air —
Sure some phantom sees he there,
The haunted lord of Ennerslie !
There is a picture on the wall,
A statue on a pedestal —
Standing where the sunbeams fall
Goldenly — goldenly ;
And in either form and face
The self-same beauty you may trace —
Imaged with a wondrous grace,
• That angel-form at Ennerslie !
Once, 't is said, upon a time,
Eve his manhood's golden prime,
Wandering in a southern clime
Restlessly — restlessly,
There passed him by a lady fair,
With violet eyes and golden hair :
It is her form that gleameth there,
That angel-form at Ennerslie.
When the stars are in the west,
And the water-lilies rest,
Rocking on the river's breast
Sleepily — sleepily —
When the curfew, far remote,
Blendeth with the night-bird's note,
Down the river glides a boat
From the shades of Ennerslie.
Glideth on by Ellesmaire,
Where doth dwell a lady fair,
With violet eyes and golden hair,
Lonesomely — lonesomelv ;
At the window's height alway
She weaves a scarf of colors gay,
And in the distance far away
She seeth haunted Ennerslie.
Sitting in her lonely room,
Ere the twilight's purple gloom,
Weaving at her fairy loom
Wearily — wearily,
She heareth music sweet and low :
It is a song she well doth know ;
She used to sing it long ago —
It cometh up from Ennerslie.
Back she threw the casement wide
She saw the river onward glide,
The lilies nodding on the tide
Sleepily — sleepily ;
She saw a boat with snowy sail
Bearing onward with the gale ;
She saw the silken streamer pale —
She saw the lord of Ennerslie !
F.vmxrc are the summer leaves —
The fields are rich with golden sheavea
Her silken web the lady weaves
Wearily — wearily ;
Her cheek has lost its summer bloom,
Her lovely eyes are full of gloom,
She weaveth at her fairy loom,
And looketh down to Ennerslie.
SUSAN ARCHER TALLEY.
She doth not smile, she doth not sigh —
Above her is the cold gray sky ;
Below, the river moaneth by
Drearily — drearily ;
She sees the withered leaflets ride
Like fairy barks adown the tide :
She saith, " Right merrily they glide,
For they go down to Ennerslie."
Beside her on the hearth of stone,
There sits a bent and withered crone,
Who doth for ever rock and moan.
Drowsily — drowsily ;
She crooneth songs of mystic rhyme,
And legends of the olden time;
She telleth tales of death and crime —
She tells of haunted Ennerslie.
She telleth how, as she hath heard,
How dwelleth there a demon weird
In seeming of an owsel-bird,
Ceaselessly — ceaselessly ;
And how that fiend must linger still,
And work the master wo and ill,
Till one shall dare with fearless will
Go down to haunted Ennerslie.
She telleth how — that ancient crone —
He loved a lady years agone,
The fairest that the earth has known,
Secretly — secretly —
But dare not woo her for his bride,
Because that death will sure betide
The first that in her beauty's pride
Shall go to haunted Ennerslie.
She listened — but she nothing said;
Like a lily drooped her head,
Her white hand wound the silken thread
Carelessly — carelessly ;
She rove the scarf from out the loom,
She slowly paced across the room,
And gleaming through the midnight gloom
She saw the light at Ennerslie.
The nurse she slumbered in her chair:
Then up arose that lady fair
And crept adown the winding stair
Silently — silently ;
A boat was by the river-side,
The silken web as sail she tied,
And lovely in her beauty's pride,
Went sailing down to Ennerslie.
Back upon the sighing gale
Her tresses floated like a veil ;
Her brow was cold, her cheek was pale,
Fearfully— fearfully ;
She heard strange whispers in her ear,
She saw a shadow hover near —
Her very life-blood chilled with fear,
As down she went to Ennerslie.
As upward her blue eyes she cast,
A shadowy form there flitted past,
And settled on the quivering mast
Silently— silently.
The lady gazed, yet spake no word :
She knew il was the evil bird,
The wicked demon, grim and weird,
That dwelt at haunted Ennerslie.
Fainter from the tower's height
Seems to her the beacon-light,
Gleaming on her darkening sight
Fitfully -fitfully ;
The river's voice is faint and low,
An icy calm is on her brow ;
She saith, " The curse is on me now,
But he is free at Ennerslie !"
Within that tower's solitude
He sitteth in a musing mood,
And gazeth down upon the flood
Dreamilv — dreamily :
When lo ! he sees a fairy bark
Gliding amid the shadows dark,
And there a lady still and stark —
A wondrous sight at Ennerslie.
He hurried to the bank below,
Upon the strand he drew the prow —
He drew it in the moonlight's glow,
Eagerly — eagerly ;
He parted back the golden hair
That veiled the cheek and forehead fair,
He started at her beauty rare,
The pale young lord of Ennerslie.
He called her name: she nothing said;
Upon his bosom drooped her head ;
The color from her wan cheek fled
Utterly — utterly.
Slowly rolled the sluggish tide, , •
The breeze amid the willows sighed ;
" This is too deep a curse !" he cried —
The stricken lord of Ennerslie.
GENIUS.
SpiniT immortal and divine !
Whose calm and searching eye
Looks forth upon the universe,
Its wonders to descry —
Whose eagle-wing, resistless, proud,
Hath soared above each misty cloud
That o'er us darkly spread —
I bow before thee, as of old
The Grecian bowed to her who told
The oracles of dread.
For thou art Nature's prophet — priest,
Anointed by her God,
And dwellest in her sacred courts,
By others all untrod :
To thee alone 'tis given to raise
The veil that shrouds from mortal gaze
Her mysteries sublime ;
To hear her sweet and solemn tone
Revealing wonders else unknown
In all the lapse of time.
And more — the human heart is dee}.,
And passionate, and strong,
But thou mayst read its sealed page.
And search its depths among ;
Mayst bow it with thy sptll of might
J14
SUSAN ARCHER TALLEY.
Or urge it to a prouder flight,
A loftier desire —
Till, yielding to thy high control,
The newly-wakened, eager soul,
To purer things aspire.
Thou dwellest on this lowly earth,
Majestic and alone ;
Thy home is in a brighter clime,
Near the Eternal's throne ;
And evermore, in tameless might,
Still strivest thou to wing thy flight,
Its glory to attain ;
E'en as the eagle turns his eye,
Though fettered, to'his native sky,
And struggles with his chain.
Men gaze in strange and wondering awe
On thine inspired brow,
But reck not of the hidden things
That darkly sleep below ;
Nor how thou spurnest earth's control,
What voices haunt thy troubled soul —
What shadows round thee play ;
Thy dreams are all of future bliss,
Of other worlds — and e'en in this
Thy name shall not decay !
Sage ! musing in thy lonely cell —
Aspiring, yet serene ;
Tracking afar the light of truth,
Through darkness dimly seen —
A thousand minds thy truths have caught,
And pondered o'er thy lofty thought,
In inspiration high :
A thousand minds have scanned the page
Made clearer by the lapse of age,
In which thy treasures lie.
Bard — lo ! the thrilling strain that poured
Thy soul's deep melodies,
Have waked in many an echoing heart
A thousand sympathies ;
Have lived through years of dull decay
When princely names have passed away,
That were a glory then,
Till every word hath thus become
Like to a thrilling voice of home,
In the deep hearts of men !
And ye o'er whose inspired souls
Strange shapes of beauty gleamed,
Embodied to the gaze of men
in forms of heaven that seemed —
The marble still in beauty lives,
The pictured canvass but receives
New value from decay ;
And both shall perish ere the name
Of him who gave them unto fame
Hath passed, like them, away.
And they, to whom were given the gift
Of Inspiration's tongue —
Upon whose high, commanding words
Senates in rapture hung ;
And they, the dauntless chiefs and brave,
On battle-field and ocean-wave,
Who won a lofty fame —
L<* ieathless, and defying Time,
A thousand monuments sublime
Commemorate each name !
Thus Genius lives — its spirit caught
From heaven's own height afar,
Shines tranquil mid the gloom of earth,
An ever-guiding star :
A shining mark that's given to show
To those who dark'y tread below
The way our pathway tends ;
A beautv and a mystery,
A prophecy of things to be
Wrhen earthly being ends !
A prophecy of glorious things—
Of holy things and bright,
Which we behold not through the mists
That dim our mortal sight ;
A voice that whispers from afar,
Telling of wondrous things that are
Where perfectness hath power !
A light to guide the spirit on
Till that celestial state be won
Which was our primal dower.
Thou shalt go forth in prouder might
And firmer strength ere long,
And Truth shall guide thee on thy way
WTith revelation strong ;
And thou shalt see with wondering eyes
The thousand mighty mysteries
That round our being cling ;
Unfolding truths whose shadows lie
Darkly before the doubting eye,
Our souls bewildering.
High souls have gazed on wondrous thing^
And men have called them dreams —
But they are such as shadowed stars
Upon the mirroring streams;
We gaze upon the phantom-glow — -
Alas! we gaze too much below —
And strive to grasp in vain ;
But Genius turns his gaze afar,
Where like a pure and shining star
The glorious truth is seen !
Go forth, thou spirit proud and high,
Upon thy soaring flight !
Thou art the messenger of God,
And he will guide thee right.
Go proudly forth and fearlessly,
For many a hidden mystery
Awaits thee to unseal :
And men shall gaze in rapt surprise
On wonders that to darkened eyes
Thy brightness shall reveal !
MY SISTER.
I HAVE an only sister,
Fresh in her girlish glee,
For she is only seventeen,
And still is fancy free :
She has a fair and happy face,
Like cloudless skies in May —
Or like a lake, where tranquilly
The silver moonbeams play.
SUSAN ARCHER TALLEY.
315
She is my only sister,
And we've together grown,
Till childhood's thoughtless glee hath changed
To girlhood's gentle tone ;
And we have shared in varied scenes
Of sadness and of glee,
But never were two sisters
As different as we.
\Tet in our outward seeming,
In feature and in face,
They sav that e'en a careless glance
May some resemblance trace ;
Save that a flood of sunny light
O'er her seems softly shed,
While over me some darker shades
Like twilight shadows spread.
Her tresses, tinged with golden,
All gracefully entwine
Upon a calm and placid brow
Of fairer hue than mine ;
Her cheek is of a brighter glow,
Her eye a softer brown,
Where from the dark and drooping fringe
A dreamy shade is thrown.
My sister hath no sorrow
To check her spirit free ;
No mournful shadows o'er her pass
As oft they pass o'er me ;
Her smile is ever beaming forth
In one unchanging mood,
The gladness of a sunny heart
By sorrow unsubdued.
She's happy mid the revelry,
And in the mazy dance;
And in the drearest solitude
As brightly shines her glance ;
She calmly plucks the flowers of life
Around her pathway spread,
And careth not for those to bloom,
Nor dreams of others dead.
The deep, delirious dreamings,
Whose wild, bewildering strife
Beguiles the heart from sober truths
And wearies it of life —
The sudden fits of mournfulness,
Of wild and fitful glee,
My sister's tranquil breast knows not,
As they are known to me.
There are many like my sister —
They who serenely glide,
Secure in tranquil cheerfulness
Adown life's stormy tide.
'Tis strange to think how tranquilly
They brave the tempest's frown,
And calmly breast the troubled waves,
When other barks go down !
My fair and gentle sister !
How calmly glides her life —
No weariness to dim her brow,
No care or spirit-strife :
With happy heart she hears alone
The music of life's stream,
And all things seem to her as yet
A fair and fairy dream !
THE SEA-SHELL.
SADLY the murmur, stealing
Through the dim windings of the mazy shell,
Seemeth some ocean-mystery concealing
Within its cell.
And ever sadly breathing,
As with the tone of far-off waves at play, [ing,
That dreamy murmur through the sea-shell wreath-
Ne'er dies away.
It is no faint replying
Of far-off melodies of wind and wave,
No echo of the ocean-billow, sighing
Through gem-lit cave.
It is no dim retaining
Of sounds that through the dim sea-caverns swell,
But some lone ocean-spirit's sad complaining
Within that cell.
" Where are the waters flowing'?"
Thus breathes that ever-wailing spirit-tone ;
" WThere are the bright gems in their beauty glow-
In cavern lone 1 [ing,
" I languish for the ocean —
I pine to view the billow's heaving crest •
I miss the music of its dreamlike motion,
That lulled to rest.
" W'here are the bright waves playing 1
Where sleeps the cavern's still and gem-lit gloom 1
For there I know sweet tones, yet sad, are straying,
That call me home !"
In vain thy plaintive sighing,
• Lone ocean-sprite ! thy home is far away ;
No ocean-music giveth sweet replying
Unto thy lay.
Far off the waves are gleaming ;
Thy sisters deck with pearls their tresses fair,
And gem-light through the ocean-caves is stream-
Thou art not there ! [ing
How like art thou, sad spirit,
To many a one, the lone ones of the earth ! —
Who in the beauty of their souls inherit
A purer birth ;
They who, for ever yearning,
Pine for the glory of their far-off home ;
Unto its half-veiled beauty sadly turning,
From earthly gloom.
Whose tones, for ever swelling,
Pour forth the melody of burning thought;
From the sweet music of that far-off dwelling
An echo caught !
Like thine the restless sighing—
Like thine the melody their spirits own ,
No kindred music to their own replying,
' No answering tone !
They dream — they dream for ever !
They live in visions beautiful and vain ;
And vain the spirit's passionate endeavor
TJ break their chain.
Yec thou, lone child of ocean,
Mayst never more behold thine ocean-foam
While they shall rest from each wild, sad emotiou
And find their home !
REBECCA S. NICHOLS.
Miss REBECCA S. REED, now Mrs. NICHOLS,
is a nativ-e of the little town of Greenwich,
in New Jersey, where her fa'her was a phy
sician. When she was seventeen years of
age, Dr. Reed removed to Kentucky, and a
few months afterward she was married, in
Louisville, to Mr. W. Nichols, of Homer, in
New York. Her first appearance as an au
thor was under the signature of "Ellen," in
the Louisville News Letter, in 1839. In the
same year Mr. Nichols removed to St. Louis,
where he established The Pennant, a daily
gazette, from which in a few months he
withdrew and went to Cincinnati, where he
has since resided.
In 1844, Mr. Nichols published a "volume
entitled Bernice, or the Curse of Minna, and
other Poems, and she has since been a fre
quent contributor to the periodicals, tinder
her proper signature and under that of "Kate
Cleveland." Bernice is a romantic story, in
three cantos. The scene is in Italy ; and the
poem contains some striking passages, but
none that should add to the good reputation
she has acquired by her minor pieces, many
of which are evidently the offspring of real
emotion, and bear to that the relation of expe
rience to the fictitious passion of the stage.
Some of her best pieces were first published ii)
The Guest, a journal of which she was editress
TO MY BOY IN HEAVEN.
I GAZKD upon thee ! Was it rigid Death
That sat enthroned upon thine icy brow 1
Ah no ! methought I saw the living breath
Of life expand thy heaving breast but now :
He sleeps ! tread softly — wake him not ; how bright
These dreams of heaven upon his spirit fall !
They fold it slumbering 'ne.ath their wings of light,
And bear it up to Heaven's high festival —
The festival of dreams — where spirits hold
Their deep cornmunings, when the seraph Sleep
Spreads his encircling wings, which softly fold
The earth to rest, and close the eyes that weep.
It was a fearful dream : methought ye said
That he— my boy — was of the earth no more !
That all the sentinels of life had fled,
And that pale Death their portals guarded o'er:
Ye deemed that I should weep — but not a tear
Burst from the frozen founts where they were pent,
Though dark, foreboding thought and bitter fear
Rushed to my heart, and bade my soul lament.
He is not dead — he sleeps : he could not die,
So loved, so beautiful ! If Death should bear
His spirit hence, e'en to his native sky,
My voice would pierce the inner temples there !
He is not dead ! Ah, how my spirit mocks
The \am delusion ! Can I look on this, [locks 1
And doubt whose hand each charmed vein now
I dare not claim what Death hath sealed as his:
And thus I gave thee, Arthur, to the tomb,
And saw the brow oft pillowed next my heart
Laid down amid the dust and darkling gloom,
To be, alas ! too soon of dust a part !
I saw them heap the earth about thy form,
And press the light turf o'er thy peaceful breast,
Then leave thee to the cold and brooding worm,
A.S some young d-.»ve in a deserted nest.
I gazed : it was the autumn's golden light [home
That flung bright shadows o'er thy new-made
While through the trees that waved in colors bright,
I heard the low sweet winds thy dirges moan !
And there was one looked with me on that scene,
Who bade me know our bitter loss thy gain :
But ah ! his cheek was pale as mine, I ween,
And from his eyes the hot tears fell like rain.
That eve, while gazing on the midnight sky,
One bright new star looked out from its lone
sphere :
We knew no name to call the stranger by,
So gave it thine, and deemed that thou wert near.
The autumn passed : how desolate was earth !
How froze the lucid veins upon her brow !
While oft the spectre winds now wandered forth
Like unseen spirits, treading sad and slow :
Dark, hoary winter came, with piercing breath,
And gave to earth a passionless embrace —
Ah me ! 'twas as the lip of white-browed Death
Had kissed with fondness some beloved face :
The dazzling snow-wreath garlanded thy tomb,
While each pale star, effulgent as the day,
Let forth its glittering beams amid the gloom,
And dimpled earth, where this white splendor lay.
I left thee : wooed to that rich southern clime
Where glows the orange and where blooms the
The land of passion, where the brow of time [rose;
Dims not, but with renewed splendor glows —
The joyous Spring on her triumphal car
Rode through the land in beauty and in light,
And on the young south wind flung wide and far
The odor of her flowers — her spirit's young delight.
I rested not, though all was bright and green,
For still I heard thy gentle voice's moan :
My spirit leaped the darkling space between,
And knelt, all breathless, by thy twilight home !
316
REBECCA S. NICHOLS.
317
One year hath flown — one little circ'ing year —
A dim, faint shadow of the wing of Time ;
Nor hath mine eye forgot the secret tear,
Or heart to weave the sad and mournful rhyme :
I stand heside thee — and I quickly trace
The loving hand that hath been busy here.
Who gave such beauty to thy dwelling-place,
And bade the fresh green grass wave lightly there '!
My heart is ful!, nor can I say farewell,
E'en to thy gentle shade, oh spirit bright !
W ithout one prayer for him who wove the spell
Of loveliness where all was rayless night.
Not unremembered, then, thy narrow home
Within the city of the voiceless dead;
For hither oft a kindred form would roam,
And place fresh turf above thy fair young head.
I stand beside thee ! — and again the dreams
Of olden time rise up before my view,
While lulling sounds, like to the voice of streams
Float o'er my soul, soft as the morning dew :
Could prayers or tears of mine but win thee now
From thy high walk around the starry thrones,
So selfish this, my tears would cease to flow —
My voice refuse to falter forth the tones.
MY SISTER ELLEN.
SFSTER ET.LKX, I've been dreaming
Of a fair and happy time ;
Gentle thoughts are round me gleaming,
Thoughts of sunny girlhood's prime :
Oh, the light, untutored fancies,
Images so quaint and bold —
Dim out ines of old romances,
Forming childhood's age of gold !
Eternal spring was then above us,
Sunshine cheered our every path ;
None then knew us but to love us —
Winning ways sweet childhood hath.
Thou art little Ne'ly, looking
Up into my anxious fane—
I thy childish caprice brooking,
As thy merry thoughts I trace :
See thy dreamy blue eyes glancing
From thy founts of light and glee,
And thy little feet go dancing
Like the waves upon the sea !
Tossing from thy 'snowy shoulder
Golden curls with witching grace,
Charming every new beholder
With thine arch, expressive face.
Sister Ellen ! I've been dreaming
Of some lightsome summer eves,
When the harvest-moon was beaming
Softly through the dewy leaves —
How among the flowers we wandered,
Treading light as summer air ;
Looking upward, how we pondered
On the dazzling glories there !
We were children then together,
Though I older was in years,
And life's dark and stormy weather
Seemed like April's smiles and tears.
FAREWELL OF THE SOUL TO THE BODY
HAUK ! a solemn bell is pealing
From the far-off spirit clime ;
Angel forms, expectant, kneeling
On the outer shores sublime,
Hither turn their eyes of splendor
Piercing through the mists of time !
Thou art faintly, sadly sighing,
Voyager through time with me;
Can it be, thou 'rt sinking — dying ?
Can it be that I arn free —
Free to drink in life immortal,
Unrestrained now by thee I
Yes ! thine earthly days are numbered,
Yet thou 'rt clinging round me still ;
Still my drooping wings are cumbered
By thy weak and fleshly will :
Gently thus I loose thy claspings,
Wishing thee no further ill.
Though I 've often bent upon thee
A rebuking spirit s gaze,
When thy spell was fully on me,
In our early, youthful days,
Sad and loath I am to leave thee,
Treading Death's bewildering maze !
All of enmity is banished
As I hear thee moaning low,
Pride and beauty have so vanished,
Nothing can revive them now :
See the hand of death triumphing
In the dews upon thy brow !
Ah ! thy hoart is faintly tolling,
Like a closely muffled bell,
And the purple rivers rolling
'Neath thy bosom's gentle swell,
Flow like waters when receding
From a thirsty, springless well.
\Vhat a^veight is on thy bosom —
What a palsy in thy hand !
Thus Death chilled fair Eden's blossom-
Thus, at his august command,
All of human birth and mixture
Shuddering in his presence stand !
Let me, through thine eyelids closing,
Look once more upon the earth ;
There thou soon wilt be reposing,
Borne away from home and hearth,
W7here thy footsteps once were greeted
With the noisy shout of mirth.
Hark ! what organ tones are swelling
Through the spirit-realm on high ;
Ransomed souls are sweetly telling
Of the joys beyond the sky :
Let rne here no longer linger,
When the heavens are so nigh !
Life's companion ! thus we sever —
Our short pilgrimage is done :
We shall reunite for ever,
Travel-stained and weary one,
WThen the voice of God Eternal
Wakes the dead with trumpet lone
318
REBECCA S. NICHOLS.
LAMKXT OF THE OLD YEAR.
"I'M weary and oM," said the dying Year.
As the sceptre fell from his shrunken hand ;
'» One foot on the earth, and one on the bier,
f go, with a wail for the beautiful here,
To the phantom years in the ghostly land.
Thou ht, like a river swift, sweeps o'er me now ;
Backward I'm borne to the eve of my birth:
Smooth, then, rny wrinkled cheek, spotless my brow;
St >od I, with steady hand, held to the plough,
Ready to furrow the beautiful earth !
Then, as I sped a'ong, softly there came
One with a flowing robe, silken and green ;
Sweet was her siren voice — Spring was her name :
Sun-hine or shade, she was ever the same —
Dazzling in beauty, and graceful in mien.
Bride of my youthful days, gentle and fair,
Low lies thy grave at the portals of Time !
Wrapt in t'.iy shroud of long sunshiny hair,
The hours upborne by the wings of the air,
Entombed thee in love, singing dirges sublime.
There on thy bosom wan, pu'se'ess and cold,
Lay thy three doves at rest, which thou didst bear;
First-born of early love — lambs of our fold,
How, on their scented breath, Death feasted bold !
E'en May, the youngest one, fairest, was there.
Then, as I turned aside, weeping for thee,
Swift came another maid, laughing and bright;
She on my bosom hung, joyous and free,
And in her dulcet tones warbled to me —
Pouring her heart out in strains of delight.
Bride of my sober prime, faded and gone,
Thou wert to me as a beautiful dream !
Love in thy spirit dwelt, free on his throne,
Held bv thy ravishing sweetness alone,
Till thou wert engulfed in oblivion's stream.
Sad, then, my spirit grew — lonely I sighed ;
All that I loved on earth fled from my grasp:
Spring, in her beauty, first mournfully died —
Summer I buried, too, close by her side,
Wrenching the links of affection's strong clasp.
Thin grew my whitened beard — moistened my eye;
Faint was my voice's tone — languished my heart:
Then, in my dreary age, Autumn drew nigh,
Like a sweet antjel of love from the sky,
Ready to act the Samaritan's part.
Oh, she with wisdom soothed ! cheerful her voice,
Riirjiii'T at morn like a c'ear matin-bell ;
Streams in my Summer's path seemed to rejoice;
Spring was my first and my earliest choice,
But Autumn I loved with a fervor as well.
Oft when the "'lowing stars — footprints of God —
Lit up the earth with a holier li^ht,
We o'er each p'e;ts;mt place falt'riim-ly trod,
Wailing the fate of the brown, fading sod,
That shrunk from our steps as if fearing a blight
Down by a Hashing rill, winding in shade,
Leaping t> sun'uht in g'adness and mirth,
We, in a softened mo; id, pleasantly made
A coach, where the streamlet a monodv played —
A death song for one of the brightest of earth !
Pale grew the berries red, close at our feet;
Wan looked the waning moon over our head ;
Then moaned the hollow winds, winged and fleet,
And Autumn unfolded her white winding-sheet,
While Winter approached and enshrouded the
dead !
As I in voiceless grief over her hung,
Through her half-frozen lips broken words earner
Sweeter than all that the minstrel has sung,
The death-stricken accents that fell from her tongue,
For even in death she was lisping my name !
Down by her yawning tomb, wrinkled with care,
Cheerless and lone I sat, stricken and old ;
While my shrill piping voice poured on the air
Tones like the voice of the spectre Despair,
Calling his flock to their desolate fold !
Then did I journey on, leaning the while
Faintly on Winter's staff, goaded by him :
Ne'er on my shrivelled lips glimmered a smile —
Weari'y traveled we many a mi'e,
The sun growing dark, and the stars shining dim.
Through the old forests vast, leafless and brown,
Fled we the sick'e keen, wielded by Time :
Thus ever reapeth he what hath been sown,
Plucking the fruits which another hath grown,
Golden sheaves binding in every clime.
Down by the blackened stream, flowing from Death,
Sit I, with folded hands, waiting my doom ;
Numb are my ag^d limbs — frozen my breath ;
Soon shall the pearl-berried misletoe wreath
Twine its green arms round the parted Year's
tomb !"
Thus sighed the dying year, palsied and old ;
Feeble and few "grew the words that he spoke;
Twelve had the be 1 with its iron tongue told
When Time, in his office grown fearless and bold,
With sharp-whetted scythe cut him down at a
stroke !
THE ISLE OF DREAMS.
I MET thee in the Isle of Dreams,
Beloved of my soul —
I met thee on the silver sands,
Where Lethean rivers roll ;
And by the flashing water-falls,
That lulled the hours asleep,
Thy spirit, whispered unto mine
The vows it may not keep
I met thee in the Isle of Dreams —
No fairer land may bloom
Amon? the island-stars that crest
The midnight's heavy gloom :
The lilies blossomed in our path,
Wild roses on the spray.
And YOUIVJ: birds from the wilderness
Sang each a dreamy lav.
Our steps fell lightly as we pressed
The green, enchanted ground,
For love was swelling in our hearts,
And in the air around :
REBECCA S. NICHOLS.
319
All, all was sunshine, bliss, and light,
Beloved of my soul,
When in the Isle of Dreams we met,
Where Lethean rivers roll
Then tread again the sounding shores
That echo in my dreams,
And walk beneath the rosy sky
That through my vision gleams ;
Oh meet me, meet me yet once more,
Beloved of my soul,
Within the lovely Isle of Dreams,
Where Lethean rivers roll !
THE SHADOW.
TWICE beside the crumbling well
Where the lichen clingeth fast —
Twice, the shadow on them fell,
And the breeze went wailing past.
" Shines the moon this eve as brightly
As the harvest-moon may shine ;
Stands each star, that glimmers nightly,
Like a saint within its shrine :
Whence the shade then, whence the shadow 1
Cansi thou tell, sweet lady mine 1"
But the lady's cheek was pale,
And her lips were snovvv white,
As she clasped her silken veil,
Floating in the silver light :
Like an angel's wing it glistened —
Like a sybil seemed the maid ;
But in vain the lover listened,
Silence on her lips was laid !
Though they moved, no sound had broken
Through the stillness of the glade.
Brighter grew her burning eyes —
Wan and thin the rounded cheek :
Was it terror, or surprise,
That forbade the lips to speak ?
To his heart, then, creeping slowly,
Came a strange and deadly fear;
Words and sounds profane, unholy,
Stole into his shrinking ear —
And the moon sunk sudden downward,
Leaving earth and heaven drear !
Slowly from the lady's lips
Burst a deep and heavy sigh — >•
As from some long, dark eclipse,
Rose the red moon in the sky :
Saw he then the ladv leaning
Cold and fainting by the well ;
Eyes once filled with tender meaning
Closed beneath some hidden spell :
\\ hat was heard he dared not whisper,
What he feared were death to tell !
The little hand was wondrous fair
Which to him so wildly clung —
Raven was the glossy hair
Then from off her forehead flung;
Much too fair that hand for staining
With a crime of darkest dye :
But the moon again is waning
In the pale and starless sky —
Hark ! what words are slowly falling
On the breeze that swept them by 1
" Touch her not !" the voice it said —
" Wrench thy mantle from her grasp f
Thus the disembodied dead
Warns from that polluting clasp.
Touch her not, but still look on her —
All an angel seemeth she ;
Yet, the guilty stains upon her
Shame the Fiend's dark company !
But, her hideous crime is nameless
Under heaven's canopy."
Twice, beside the crumbling well,
Where the lichen clingeth fast —
Twice the shadow on them fell,
And the breeze went wailing past:
Twice the voice's hol'ow warning
Pierced the haunted midnight air !
Then the golden light of morning
Streamed upon the lady there :
They who found her, stark and lonely,
Said the corse was very fair.
LITTLE NELL.
SPHTXG, with breezes cool and airy,
Opened on a little fairy ;
Ever restless, making merry,
She, with pouting lips of cherry,
Lisped the words she could not master,
Vexed that she might speak no faster —
Laughing, running, playing, dancing,
Mischief all her joys enhancing —
Full of baby-mirth and glee,
It was a joyous sight to see
Sweet Little Nell !
Summer came, the green earth's lover,
Ripening the tufted clover —
Calling down the glittering showers,
Breathing on the buds and flowers — •
Rivalling young pleasant May
In a generous holvday !
Smallest insects hummed a tune
Through the blessi'-d nights of June :
And the maiden sang her song
Through the days so bright and long —
Dear Little Nell !
Autumn came ! the leaves were falling-
Death the little one was calling :
Pale and wan she grew, and weakly,
Bearing all her pains so meekly,
That to us she seemed still dearer
As the trial-hour drew nearer.
But she left us hopeless, lonely,
Watching by her semblance only :
And a little grave they made her.
In the churchyard cold they laid her—
Laid her softly down to rest,
With a white rose on her breast —
Poor Little Nell !
320
REBECCA S. NICHOLS.
THK LITTLE FLOCK.
" WE were not many" — we who stood
In childhood round our mother's knee —
\ laughing, wild, and wayward brood
Of many a changeful mind and mood,
And hearts as light as hearts could be.
" We were not many" — we who played,
When breathless came the scorching noon,
Out in the leafy, grassy shade,
The old and fragrant orchard made,
As lengthened shadows fell in June.
How sweetly smelled the upturned mould
Beneath the green and bending bough,
For there, when days were moist and cold,
The grass was sown ere spring was old —
I'd give the world to see it now !
" We were not many" — we who drew
At evening round the blazing hearth,
To read, how from the harebells blue
The tiny elves would drink the dew,
Ere fairy forms forsook the earth.
" We were not many" — we who heard,
From lips we loved at eve and morn,
The teachings of the holy word,
When youthful hearts to prayer were stirred,
And love of meek-eyed Faith was born.
" We were not many" — death has spared
A larger flock to mother's tears,
And when his icy arm was bared,
We scarcely thought that he had dared
To touch the one so young in years.
" We were not many" — we who wept
To see his star in swift decline :
Five golden autumns he has slept —
Five budding springs the moss has crept
Around his couch beneath the pine.
" We are not many" — when we stand
Where now he sleeps, at fall of dew ;
When loving May, with breezes bland,
Has smoothed the turf with angel hand,
And decked it round with violets blue.
•' We are not many" — we who press
With trembling lips Life's brimming cup:
One craving draughts of happiness —
Another, it may be, would bless
The wave that dashed death's waters up.
" We are not many" — doubts and fears,
And faded hopes of earth's renown,
And broken faith, and toil and tears,
Have, iii the winepress of our years,
Been heaped, and crushed, and trodden down !
•' We were not many" — we who stood
lu childhood round our mother's knee :
But one from out the laughing brood
Has borne unto his solitude
The dreams he drcampt in infancy.
MUSINGS.
How like a conqueror the king of day
Folds back the curtains of his orient couch,
Bestrides the fleecy clouds, and speeds his way
Through skies made blighter by his burning
touch ;
For as a warrior from the tented field,
Victorious hastes his wearied limbs to rest,
So doth the sun his brazen sceptre yield,
And sink, fair night, upon thy gentle breast.
All hail, sad Vesper ! on thy girdled throne
Thou sitst a queen. Oh, twilight watcher-star,
With gliding step thou comest forth alone,
Pale, dreamy dweller of the realms afar ;
And when at eve's most holy, chastened hour,
I watch each lesser star within its shrine,
How do I miss the strange, mysterious power
That chains my spirit to thine orb divine.
Fair Vesper ! when thy golden tresses gleam
Amid the banners of the sunset sky,
Thy spirit floats on every radiant beam
That gilds with beauty thy sweet home on high :
Then hath my soul its hour of deepest bliss,
And gentle thoughts like angels round me
throng,
Breathing of worlds (oh, how unlike to this !)
Where dwells eternal melody and song.
Star of the twilight ! thou wert loved by one
Whose spirit late hath passed away from earth,
Who parted from us when the wailing tone
Of some lone winds hushed gentle summer's
mirth :
Yet, though we missed her at the eventide,
And eyes gazed sadly on the vacant chair,
Though from the hearth her music-tones have
died,
And gone glad laughter that resounded there —
Still from her high and holy place above
None would recall her to this earthly sphere,
Or seek to win her from that home of love
To tread the paths of sin and sorrow here :
But clouds are gathering round fair Cynthia's
home,
And dark and heavy grows the sultry air,
While, one by one, the lights in yon vast dome
Fade and go out as Death were busy there.
And she, pale spirit of the midnight skies,
Whose tears of light were streaming o'er the
heath,
Now seems, unto my wakeful, watching eyes,
Like some lone weeper in the house of death !
The storm hath burst — the lightning's angry eye
Glanceth around me, and the hoarse winds tell
The raging tempest s might and majesty.
Bright thoughts have vanished — gentle star, faro-
well !
-
JULIA WARD HOWE.
(Born 1819).
MRS. JULIA HOWE is a daughter of the
late eminent banker Samuel Ward, and a sis
ter of Samuel Ward, junior, one of our most
accomplished scholars. In the spring of
1543 she was married to Dr. S. G. Howe,
of Boston, so well known to his countrymen,
and indeed to mankind, as one of the most
active and wise of living philanthropists.
Mrs. Howe was educated by the best mas
ters, and her native intelligence rewarded a
careful culture with fruits of grace and beau
ty which detain the admiration of society.
One of her teachers was the much-lamented
Schlesinger, of whom an elegant memoir
was published by Mr. Ward, at the close of
which he observes: "Returning to New York
from a visit to Boston, on the morning of the
twelfth of June, the writer of this memoir
was overpowered by the sad intelligence of
'.he demise of Mr. Schlesinger — whom he
loved as a brother, and of whose danger he
had no suspicion. He gradually gaihered
from a pupil of the deceased, that he had
died in the night of the eighth, and been bu
ried, the Sunday after, in the Marble Ceme
tery, whither his mortal remains were fol
lowed by his friends and his Brothers of the
' Concordia,' who sang a requiem over his
grave. When he asked her for further de
tails, turning away to hide her tears, she
handed him these lines." The pupil here
referred to is Mrs. Howe, and the lines are
the poem entitled The Burial of Schlesinger,
which may be ranked among the finest pro
ductions of feminine genius.
Mrs. JuliaWard, the mother of Mrs. Howe>
was a woman of taste and various acquire
ments, and her literary abilities are illustra
ted in many brilliant occasional poems, in
English and French, of which some speci-
I mens are furnished in an earlier part of the
i present volume.
THE BURIAL OF SCHLESINGER.
SAD music breathes upon the air,
And steps come mournfully and slow ;
Heavy is the load we bear,
Fellow-men our burthen share,
Death has laid our brother low.
Ye have heard our joyous strain,
Listen to our notes of wo !
Do ye not remember him
Whose finger, from the thrilling wire,
Now drew forth tears, now tones of fire ]
Ah ! that hand is cold for ever :
Gone is now life's fitful fever —
We sing his requiem.
We are singing .him to rest —
He will rise a spirit blest.
Sing it softly, sing it slowly —
Let each note our sorrow tell,
For it is our last farewell, '
And his grave is lone and lowly.
We sorrow for thee, brother !
We grieve that thou must lie
Far from the spot where thy fathers sleep ;
Thou earnest o'er the briny deep
In a stranger land to die.
We bear thee gently, brother,
To thy last resting-place;
21
Soon shall the earth above thee close,
And the dark veil of night repose
For ever on thy face.
We placed the last flowers, brother,
Upon thy senseless brow ;
We kissed that brow before 't was hid,
We wept upon thy coffin-lid,
But all unmoved wert thou.
We've smoothed the green turf, brother,
Above thy lowly head ;
Earth in her breast receive thee :
Oh, it is sad to leave thee,
Alone in thy narrow bed !
Thou art not with us, brother —
Yet, in yon blissful land,
Perhaps, thou still canst hear us — •
Perhaps thou hoverest near us
And smilest as the choral band,
Which once obeyed thy master hand,
Now linger with their tears to leave
The sod that seals thy grave.
The sun is sinking, brother,
And with it our melody.
The dying cadence of our rite
Is mingled with the dying light.
Oh, brother ! by that fading ray,
And by this mournful parting laj
We will remember thee.
321
JULIA WARD HOWE.
The sculptor, in his chiselled stone,
The painter, in his colors blent,
The hard, in nurnhers all his own,
Raises himself his monument:
But he, whose every touch could wake
A passion, and a thought control,
He who, to Ixess the ear, did make
Music of his very soul ;
Who bound for us, in golden chains,
The golden links of harmony —
IS" aught is left us of his strains,
Naught but their fleeting memory :
Then, while a trace of him remains,
Shall we not cherish it tenderly ]
WOHDSWORTH.
BARK of the unseen haven,
Mind of unearth'y mood,
Like to the prophet's raven,
Thou bringest me heavenly food ;
Or like some mild dove winging
Its way from cloudless skies,
Celestial odors bringing,
And in its glad soul singing
The songs of paradise.
Surely thou hast been nearer
The bounds of day and night —
Thy vision has l>een clearer,
And loftier thy flight,
And thou to God art dearer
Than many men of mi^ht.
Speak ! for to thee we listen
As never to bard before,
And faded eyes shall glisten
That thought to be bright no more.
Oh, tell us of yonder heaven,
And the world that lies within ;
Tell us of the happy spirits
To whom we are near of kin ;
Tell of the songs of rapture,
Of the stars that never set;
Do the angels call us brothers —
Does our Father love us yet 1
Speak, for our souls are thirsting
For the light of righteousness ;
Speak, for our bosoms are bursting
With a desolate loneliness ;
Our hearts are worn and weary,
Our robes are travel-soiled —
For through a desert dreary
Our wandering feet have toiled.
Those to whom life looks brighter
May ask an earthHcr strain :
A gayer spell and a lighter
Shall hold them in its chain ;
But to those who have drunk deepest
Of the cup of joy and grief,
The tuneful tears thou weepest
Do minister relief.
Speak, for the earth is throbbing
With a wild sense of pain ;
The wintry winds ar.e sobbing
The requiem of the slain ;
Dimly our lamps are burning,
And gladly we list to thee,
With a strange and mystic yearning
Toward the home where we would be :
Turn from the rhyme of weary Time,
And sing of Eternity !
Tell of the sacred mountains
Where prophets in prayer have kneeled ^
Tell of the glorious fountains
That soon shall be unsealed ;
Tell of the quiet regions
Where those we love are fled ;
Tell of the angel legions
That guard the blessed dead !
Tell us of the sea of glass,
And of the icy river ;
To those who its waves must pass
Thy message of love deliver.
Strike, strike thy harp of many lays,
And we will join the song of praise
To Him that sitteth upon the throne
Of life and love for ever !
WOMAN.
A VESTAL priestess, proudly pure,
But of a meek and quiet spirit ;
With soul all dauntless to endure,
And mood so calm that naught can stir it,
Save when a thought most deeply thrilling
Her eyes with gentlest tears is filling,
Which seem with her true words to start
From the deep fountain at her heart.
A mien that neither seeks nor shuns
The homage scattered in her way ;
A love that hath few favored ones,
And yet for a!l can work and pray •,
A smile wherein each mortal reads
Tlie very sympathy he needs ;
An eye like to a mystic book
Of lays that bard or prophet sings.
Which keepeth for the holiest look
Of holiest love its deepest things
A form to which a king had bent,
The fireside's dearest ornament —
Known in the dwellings of the poor
Better than at, the rich man's door ;
A life that ever onward goes,
Yet in itself has deep repose.
A vestal priestess, maid, or wife —
Vestal, and vowed to offer up
The innocence of a ho'y life
To Him who gives the mingled cup;
With man its bitter sweets to share,
To live and love, to do and dare ;
His prayer to breathe, his tears to shed,
Breaking to him the heavenly bread
Of hopes which, all too high for earth,
Tluve yet in her a mortal birth.
This is the woman I have dreamed,
And to my childish thought she seeuitd
The woman I myself should be :
Alas ! I would that I were she.
JULIA WARD HOWE.
323
TO A BEAUTIFUL STATUE
[ \VOUM> there were a blush upon thy cheek,
That I might deem thee human, not divine !
I would those sweet yet silent lips might speak,
Even to say, " I never can be thine !"
I would thine eye might shun my ardent gaze,
Then timidly return it ; 'neath the fold
Of the white vest thy heart beat to the praise
Responsive that thou heedest not. I hold
Tliy s enilcr hand in mine : oh, why is it so cold ?
Statue ! I call on thee ! I bid thee wake
To lite and love. The world is bright and fair ;
The flowers of spring blush in each verdant brake ;
The birds' sweet song makes glad the perfumed air,
And thou alone feel'st not its balmy breath.
Oh ! by what spell, once dear, still unforgot,
Shall I re ease thee from this seeming death? | «pot?
Wnat prayer shall charm thee from yon haunted
Awake ! I summon thee ! In vain : she hears me not.
V\ hat power hath bound thee thus ? Devoid of
sense,
Buried in thine own beauty, speechless, pa!e —
V\ hat stra.i>;e, stern destiny, what dire offence,
!i ;iii ..Lawn around thy living charms this veil?
U... -l thou. like Niobe, beho.d the death
O, a.i tuy loved ones? Did so sad a si'Jit
I'rge iVo.n thv bosom forth the panting breath,
Stea from thy tearful eye its liquid light,
And wrap thy fainting spirit in eternal night?
Or wert thou false, and merciless as fair —
And is it thus thy perfidy is wroken ?
Didst thou with smiles the trusting soul ensnare,
And smile again to see it crushed and broken !
Oh. no ! Heaven wished to rescue from the tomb
A form so faultless; and its mandate high
Arrested thee in youth's transcendent bloom,
(-'oiuealed in marb'.e thy last parting sigh, [die.
Soothed thee to wakeless sleep, nor suffered thee to
For sure thou wert not, always thus! The rush
01' i.'e's warm strea:n hath lit thy vacant glance,
Tinting t'.'.y pallid cheek with maiden blush;
Those i'airv limits have sported in the dance,
Before t':iey settled thus in quiet rest;
Thine ear the lyre's numbers hath received,
And tod their import to the throbbing breast;
Th , heart hath hoped and feared, hath joyed and
grieved,
Hath loved and trusted, and hath been deceived.
Sleep on ! The memory of thy grief or wrongs
^ ith the forgotten past have long since fled ;
And pitying Fate t'.iy slumber still prolongs,
Lest thou i-hou'dst wake, to sorrow for the dead.
Oli. should thine eyes unclose again on earth,
To find ihvse f uncared for, and alone —
1'lip males of thy young days of laughing mirth,
And he, m re dear than all, for ever gone —
V\ ith hitter tears thou 'dst ask again a heart of stone.
Sleep 0:1 in peace! thou sha't not sleep for ever :
S..f)n on thine cch ling ear the voice sha'l thri'l,
Whose well-known tone a'one thy bonds inay
And bid thy spirit burst its cerements chill : [sever,
Thy frozen heart its pulses shall resume,
Thine, eye with glistening tears of rapture swell,
Thou shalt arise in never-fading bloom !
The voice of deathless Love must break the spell :
Until that time shall come, sweet dreamer, fare thee
well ! _+__
WANING.
THE Moon looks dimly from the skies,
Of half her queenlike beauty shorn ;
A sad and shrouded thing, she lies
Where she, scarce three weeks since, was born.
As from the darkness forth she sprang,
And it to her a cradle gave,
So on its bosom she must hang
Trembling, till it become her grave.
But while she sees the stars so bright,
The Moon can not her death deplore,
For all the heavens are sown with light,
Though from herself it come no more.
Pale Moon ! and I like thee am sinking
Into my natural nothingness ;
I who, like thee, from heaven was drinking
The godlike power to love and bless.
This shroud of night is dark and chill,
And yet I can not think to mourn ;
The skies I filled are radiant still,
And will be bright when I am gone!
LEES FROM THE CUP OF LIFE.
ONCE I was sad, and well could weep,
Now I am wild, and I will laugh ;
Pour out for me libations deep !
The blood of trampled grapes I'll quaff,
And mock at all who idly mourn,
And smite the beggar with his staff.
Oh ! let us hold carousal dread
Over our early pleasures gone,
Youth is departed, love is dead ;
Oh wo is me that I was born !
Yet fill the cup, pass round the jest —
Methinks I could laugh grief to scorn.
'Tis well to be a thing alone,
For whom no creature cares or grieves.
To bui'd on desert sands a throne,
And spread a couch on wintry leaves,
Ruthless and hopeless, worn and wise —
The fool, the imbecile, believes !
Make me a song whose sturdy rhyme
Shall bid defiance bold to Wo.
Though caitiff wretch, come down to mv ,
See, at thy gate my trump I blow,
And, armed with rude indifference,
To thee thy scornful glove I throw !
Ah me ! unequal, bootless fii>ht !
Ah, cuiras. that betrays my trust '
Sorrow's stern angel bears a dart
Fatal to all of mortal dust;
He is a spirit, I of clay :
He can not die — alas, I must '
324
JULIA WARD HOWE.
3PEAK, FOR THY SERVANT HEARETH.
SPEAK, for thy servant heareth ;
Alone, in my lowly bed,
Before I laid me down to rest.
My nightly prayer was said ;
And naught my spirit feareth,
In darkness or by day :
Speak, for thy servant heareth,
And heareth to obey.
I've stood before thine altar,
A child before thy might ;
No breath within thy temple stirred
The dim and cloudy light ;
And still I knew that thou wert there,
Teaching my heart to say —
« Speak, for thy servant heareth,
And heareth to obey."
0 God, my flesh may tremble
When thou speakest to my soul ;
But it can riot shun thy presence blest,
Or shrink from thy control.
A joy my spirit cheereth
That can not pass away :
Speak, for thy servant heareth,
And heareth to obey.
Thou biddest me to utter
Words that I scarce may speak,
And mighty things are laid on me,
A helpless one and weak ;
Darkly thy truth declareth
Its purpose and its way :
Speak, for thy servant heareth,
And heareth to obey.
And shouldst thou be a stranger
To that which thou hast made ?
Oh ! ever be about my path,
And hover near my bed.
Lead me in every step I take,
Teach me each word I say :
Speak, for thv servant heareth,
And heareth to obey.
How hath thy glory lighted
My lonely place of rest ;
How sacred now shall be to me
The spot which thou hast blest !
If aught of evil should draw nigh
To bring me shame and fear,
My steadfast soul shall make reply,
" Depart, for God is near !"
1 b/ess thee that thou speakest
Thus to an humble child ;
The God of Jacob calls to me
In gentle tones aid mild;
Thine enemies before thy face
Are scattered in dismay :
Speak, Lord, thy servant heareth,
And heareth to obey.
I've stood before thee all my days —
Have ministered to thee ;
But in the hour of darkness first
Thou speakest unto me.
And now, the night appeareth
More beautiful than day :
Speak, Lord, thy servant heareth,
And heareth to obey.
A MOTHER'S FEARS.
I A>I one who holds a treasure,
A gem of wondrous cost ;
But I mar my heart's deep pleasure
With the fear it may be lost.
God gives not many mothers
So fair a child as thou,
And those he gives to others
In death are oft laid low.
I, too, might know that sorrow,
To stand by thy dying bed,
And wish each weary morrow
Only that I were dead.
Oh ! would that I could bear thee,
As I bore thee 'neath my heart,
And every sorrow spare thee,
And bid each pain depart !
Tell me some act of merit
By which I may deserve
To hold the angel spirit,
And its sweet life preserve.
When I watch the little creature,
If tears of rapture flow —
If I worship each fair feature —
All mothers would do so.
And if I fain would shield her
From suffering, on my breast,
Strive every joy to yield her,
'Tis thus that I am blest.
Oh ! for some heavenly token,
By which I may be sure
The vase shall not be broken —
Dispersed the essence pure !
Then spake the Angel of Mothers
To me, in gentle tone :
"Be kind to the children of others,
And thus deserve thine own."
*:
AMELIA B. WELBY.
(Born 1821-Died 1852)
AMELIA B. WELBY, whose maiden name
was COPPUCK, was born in the small town
of St. Michael's, in Maryland, in 1821. When
she was about fourteen years of age, her fa
ther removed to Lexington and afterward to
Louisville, in Kentucky, where, in 1838, she
was married to Mr. George B. Welby, a mer
chant of that city.
Mrs. Welby made herself known at a very
early age by numerous poetical pieces print
ed, under the signature of "Amelia," in the
Louisville Journr' -hich is edited by Mr.
George D. Prenti a gentleman deserving
as much reputation for his literary abilities
as for his wit,) and has been a medium for
the original appearance of much of the best
poetry of the West.
In 1844 a collection of her poems appeared
in a small octavo volume at Boston, and their
popularity has been so great that it has since
passed through four or five large editions.
This success must have surprised as much
as it gratified th.e amiable and modest poet,
for, writing to me in the summer of 1843,
she observed in reference to a suggestion I
had made to her — " My husband arid friends
here also desire greatly to have a collection
of my little poems published, but really I am
afraid they are not worth it. Many of them
were written when I was so verj young, that
at the sober age of twenty-two I can scarcely
read them without a blush." With the same
letter she sent me the manuscript of one of her
longest poems, entitled Pulpit Eloquence. It
is now before me, and though scarcely a be
liever in Mr Foe's ingenious speculations
upon " autograpny," I see in the elaborate
neatness and distinctness of her round and
regular handwriting an indication of the pe
culiar character of her genius, which delights
in grace and repose, in forms of delicacy and
finished elegance.
There are in the writings of Mrs. Welby
few indications of creative power ; she walks
the Temple of the Muses with no children of
the imagination ; but her fancy is lively, dis
criminating, and informed by a minute and
intelligent observation of nature, and she has
introduced into poetry some new and beau
tiful imagery. Her sentiment has the rela
tion to passion which her fancy sustains to
the imagination. No painful experience has
tried her heart's full energies ; but her feel
ings are natural and genuine ; and we arc
sure of the presence of a womanly spirit,
reverencing the sanctities and immunities of
life, and sympathizing with whatever ad
dresses the sense of beautv.
THE RAINBOW.
I S03IKTIME8 have thoughts, in my loneliest hours,
That lie on my heart like the dew on the flowers,
Of a ramble I took one bright afternoon
When my heart was as light as a blossom in June ; ',
The green earth was moist with the late fallen showers,
The hreeze fluttered down and blew open the flowers,
While a single white cloud, to its haven of rest j
On the white wing of Peace, floated off in the west.
As I threw back my tresses to catch the < ool breeze,
That scattered the rain-drops and dimpled the seas,
Far up the blue sky a fair rainbow unrolled
Its soli-tinted pinions of purple and gold.
"r\v;is born in a moment, yet, quick as its birth,
It had stretched to the uttermost ends of the earth,
And, fair as an angel, it floated as free,
With a wing on the earth and a wing on the sea.
How calm was the ocean ! how gentle its swel
Like a woman's soft bosom it rose and it fell ;
While its light sparkling waves, stealing laughingly
o'er,
When they saw the fair rainbow, knelt down on the
shore.
No sweet hymn ascended, no murmur of prayer,
Yet I felt that the spirit of worship was there,
And bent my young head, in devotion and love,
'Neath the form of the angel that floated above.
How wide was the sweep of its beautiful wings !
How boundless its circle, how radiant its rings !
If I looked on the sky, 'twas suspended in air;
If I looked on the ocean, the rainbow was there;
Thus forming a girdle, as brilliant and whole
As the thoughts of the rainbow, that circled my souL
Like the wing of the Deity, calmly unfurled,
It bent from the cloud and encircled the world.
There are moments, I think, when the spirit receives
Whole volumes of thought on its unwritten leaves.
When the folds of the neart in a moment unclose
Like the innermost leaves from the heart of a /ose.
.325
AMELIA B. WELBY.
And thus, when the rainbow had passed from the sky,
The thoughts it awoke were too deep to pass by ;
It left my full soul, like the wing of a dove,
All fluttering with pleasure and fluttering with love.
T know that each moment of raj»tt.re or pain
But shortens the links in life's mystical chain;
I know that my form, like that bow from the wave, i
Must pass from the earth, and lie cold in the grave
Yet oh ! when Death's shadows my bosom encloud,
\VhenIshrinkatthethoughtofthecoffinandshroud,
May Hope, like the rainbow, my spirit enfold
In her beautiful pinions of purple and gold !
PULPIT ELOQUENCE-
THE day was declining : the breeze in its g!ee
Had left the fair blossoms to sing on the sea,
As the sun in its gorgeousness, radiant and still,
Dropped down like a gem from the brow of the hill ;
One tremulous star, in the glory of June,
Came out with a smile and sat down by the Noon,
As she graced her blue throne with the pride of a queen,
The smiles of her loveliness gladdening the scene.
The scene was enchanting ! in distance away
Rolled the foam-crested waves of the Chesapeake bay,
While bathed in the moonlight the village was seen,
With the church in the distance that stood on the
green,
The soft-sloping meadows lay brightly unrolled
WTith their mantles of verdure and blossoms of gold,
And the earth in her beauty, forgetting to grieve,
•Lay asleep in her bloom on the bosom of eve.
A light-hearted child, I had wandered away [day ;
From the spot where my footsteps had gambolled all
And free as a bird's was the song of my soul,
As I heard the wild waters exultingly roll,
While, lightening my heart as I sported along
With bursts of low laughter and snatches of song,
I struck in the pathway half worn o'er the sod
By the feet that went up to the worship of God.
As I traced its green windings, a murmur of prayer
With the hymn of the worshippers rose on the air,
And, drawn by the links of its sweetness along,
I stood unobserved in the midst of the throng :
For a while my young spirit still wandered about
With the birds and the winds that were singing
without,
But birds, waves, and zephyrs, were quickly forgot
In one angel-like being that brightened the spot.
In stature majestic, apart from the throng
He stood in his beauty, the theme of my song!
His cheek pale with fervor — the blue orbs above
Lit up with the splendors of youth and of love ;
Yet the heart-glowing raptures, that beamed from
those eyes,
Seemed saddened by sorrows and chastened by sighs,
As if the young heart in its bloom had grown cold
With its loves unrequited, its sorrows untold.
Such language as his I may never recall,
But his theme was salvation — salvation to all:
And the souls of a thousand in ecstasv hung [tongue.
On the manna-like sweetness that dropped from his
Not alone on the car his wild eloquence stole :
Enforced by each gesture it sank to the soul,
Till it seemed that an angel had brightened the sod
And brought to each bosom a message from God.
He spoke of the Savior : what pictures he drew .
The scene of his sufferings rose clear on my view,
The cross, the rude cross where he suffered and died,
The gush of bright crimson that flowed from his side,
The cup of his sorrows, the wormwood and gall,
The darknoss that rnant'ed the earth as a pall,
The garland of thorns, and the demon-like crews,
Who knelt as they scoffed him — " Hail, King of
the Jews !"
He spake, and it seemed that his statue-like form
Expanded and glowed as his spirit grew warm — •
His tone so impassioned, so melting his air,
As, touched with compassion, he ended in prayer,
His hands clasped above him, his blue orbsupthrown,
Still pleading for sins that were never his own,
While that mouth, where such sweetness ineffable
clung,
Still spoke, though expression had died on his tongue.
0 God ! what emotions the speaker awoke !
A mortal he seemed — yet a deity spoke ;
A man — yet so far from humanity riven !
On earth — yet so closely connected with heaven !
How oft in my fancy I 've pictured him there,
As he stood in that triumph of passion and prayer,
With his eyescloseii in rapture, their transientec ipse
Made bright by the smiles that illumined his lips.
There's a charm in delivery, a magical art,
That thrills, like a kiss, from the lip to the heart;
'Tis the glance, the expression, the well-chosen word,
By whose magic the depths of the spirit are stirred ;
Thesmile, the mute gesture, the soul-start!ingpause,
The eye's sweet expression, that melts while it awes,
The lip's soft persuasion — its musical tone —
Oh such was the charm of that eloquent one !
The time is long past, yet how clearly defined
That bay, church, and village, float up on my mind !
1 see amid azure the moon in her pride,
With the sweet little trembler that sat by her side ;
I hear the blue waves, as she wanders along,
Leap up in their gladness and sing her a song,
And I tread in the pathway half worn o'er the sod
By the feet that went up to the worship of God.
The time is long past, yet what visions I see !
The past, the dim past, is the present to me ; [throng :
I am standing once more mid that heart-stricker.
A vision floats up — 'tis the theme of my song —
All glorious and bright as a spirit of air,
The light like a halo encircling his hair;
As I catch the same accents of sweetness and love,
He whispers of Jesus, and points us above.
How sweet to my heart is the picture I've traced
Its chain of bright fancies seemed almost efface
Till Memory, the fond one, that sits in the soul,
Took up the frail links, and connected the whole :
As the dew to the blossom, the bud to the bee,
As the scent to the rose, are those memories to me ;
Round the chords of my heart they have tremblingly
And the echo it gives is the song I have sung, [clung,
AMELIA B. WELBY.
327
ON ENTERING THE MAMMOTH CAVE.
H
! for mv heart-b'ood curdles as we enter
To glide in gloom these shadowy realms about ;
Oh ! what a scene the round globe to its centre,
To form this awful cave, seems hollowed out !
Yet pause — no mystic word hath yet been spoken
To win us entrance to this awful sphere —
A whispered prayer must be our watchword token,
And peace — like that around us — peace unbroken
The passport here.
And now farewell, ye birds and b'ossoms tender,
Ye glistening leaves by morning dews impearled,
And you, ye beams that light with softened splendor
The glimmering glories of yon outer world !
While thus we pause these silent arches under,
To you and yours a wild farewell we wave,
For oh ! perhaps this awful spot may sunder
Our hearts from all we love — this world of wonder
May be our grave.
And yet farewell! the faint'y flickering torches
Light our lone footsteps o'er the si'ent sod;
And now all hail, ye ever asting arches,
Ye dark dominions of an unseen God !
Who would not for this sight the bliss surrender
Of all the beauties of yon sunny sphere,
And break the sweetest ties, however tender,
To be the witness of the silent splendor
That greets us here !
Ye glittering caves, ye high, o'erhangmg arches,
A pilgrim-band we glide amid your gloom,
With breathless lips, and high, uplifted torches,
All fancifu.ly decked in cave-costume;
Far from theday'sglad beams, and songs, and flowers,
We've come with spell-touclied hearts, ye countless
To glide enchanted, for a few brief hours, [caves,
Through the calm beauty of your awful bowers
And o'er your waves !
Beautiful cave ! that all my soul entrances,
Known as the wonder of the West so long,
Oh 'twere a fate beyond my wildest fancies,
Could I but shrine you now as such in song !
But 'tis in vain — the untaught child of Nature,
I can not vent the thoughts that through me flow,
Yet none the less is graved thine every feature
Upon the wild, imaginative creature
That hails you now !
Pa'ace of Nature ! with a poet's fancies
I ?ve oftimes pictured thee in dreams of bliss,
And glorious scenes were given to my glances,
But never gazed I on a scene like this !
Compared with thine, what are the awi'ul wonders
Of the deep, fathomless, unbounded sea]
Or ih > storm-cloud whose lance of lightning sunders
The solid oak ? — or even thine awful thunders,
Niagara !
Hark ! hear ye not those echoes ringing after
Our gliding steps — my spirit faints with fear—
Those mocking tones, like subterranean laughter—
Or does the brain grow wild with wandering here ?
There may be spectres wild and forms appalling
Our wandering eyes, where'er we rove, to greet —
Methinks I hear their low, sad voices calling
Upon us now, and far away the falling
Of phantom feet.
The glittering dome, the arch, the towering column,
Are sights that greet us now on every hand,
And all so wild, so strange, so sweetly solemn —
So like one's fancies formed of fairy land !
And these, then, are your works, mysterious powers !
Your spells are o'er, around us, and beneath,
These opening aisles, these crystal fruits and flowers,
And glittering grots, and high-arched, beauteous
As still as death ! [bowers,
But yet lead on ; perhaps than this fair vision,
Some lovelier yet in darkling distance lies —
Some cave of beauty, like those realms Elysian
That ofttimes open on poetic eyes ;
Some spot, where led by Fancy's sweet assistance
Our wandering feet o'er silvery sands may stray,
Where prattling waters urge with soft resistance
Their wavelets on, till lost in airy distance,
And far away.
Oft the lone Indian o'er these low-toned waters
Has bent perhaps his swarthy brow to lave !
It seems the requiem of their dark-eyed daughters,
Those sweet, wild notes that wander o'er the wave.
Hast thou no relic of their ancient glory,
No legend, lonely cavern! linked with thine?
No tale of love — no wild, romantic story
Of some warm heart whose dreams were transitory
And sweet as mine 1
It must be so : the thought your spell enhances ;
Yet why pursue this wild, romantic dream ]
The heart, afloat upon its fluttering fancies,
Would lose itself in the bewildering theme.
And yet, ye waters! still I list your surging,
And ever and anon I seem to view,
In Fancy's eye, some Indian maid emerging
Through the deep gloom, and o'er your waters urging
Her light canoe.
Oh silent cave ! amid the elevation
Of lofty thought could I abide with thee,
My soul's sad shrine, my heart's lone habitation.
For ever and for ever thou shouldst be :
Here into song my every thought I'd render,
And thou, and thou alone, shouldst be my theme,
Far from the weary world's delusive splendor,
Would not my lonely life be all one tender,
Delicious dream ]
Yes, though no other form save mine might hover
In these lone halls, no other whisper roll
Along those airy domes that arch me over
Save gentle Echo's, sister of my sou!, [me,
Yet 'neath these domes whose spell of beauty weighs
My heart would evermore in bliss abide —
No sorrow to depress, no hojie to raise me,
Here would I ever dwell — with none to praise me,
And none to chide.
Region of caves and streams ! and must I sever
My spirit from your spell 1 T were bliss to stray
The happy rover of your realms for ever,
And yet, farewell for ever and for aye !
I leave you now, yet many a sparkling token
Within your cool recesses I have sought
To treasure up with fancies still unspoken, [broken
Till from these quivering heartstrings Death hath
The thread of thought.
AMELIA B. WE LEY.
HOPELESS LOVE.
THK trembling wavesbeneath the moonbeamsquiver
Reflecting back the blue, unclouded skies;
The stars look down upon the sti 1, bright river,
And smile to see themselves in paradise;
Sweet songs are heard to gush in joyous bosoms,
That lightly throb beneath the greenwood tree.
And glossy plumes float in amid the blossoms,
And all around are happy — all but me !
And yet, I come beneath the light, that trembles
O'er these dim paths, with listless steps to roam
For here my bursting heart no more dissembles,
My sad lips quiver, and the tear-drops come;
I come once more to list the low-voiced turtle,
To watch the dreamy waters as they flow,
And lay me down beneath the fragrant myrtle,
That drops its blossoms when the west winds blow.
Oh ! there is one, on whose sweet face I ponder,
One angel-being mid the beauteous band,
Who in the evening's hush comes out to wander
Amid the dark-eyed daughters of the land!
Her step is lightest where each light foot presses,
Her song is sweetest mid their songs of glee.
Smiles light her lips, and rosebuds, mid her tresses,
Look lightly up their dark redundancy.
Youth, wealth, and fame, are mine: al I, thaten trances
The youthful heart, on me their charms confer;
Sweet lips smile on me too, and melting glances
Flash up to mine — but not a glance from her !
Oh, I wou'd give youth, beauty, fame, and splendor,
My all of bliss, my every hope resign,
To wake in that young heart one fee'.ing tender —
To clasp that little hand, and call it mine !
In this sweet so'itude the sunny weather
Hath called to life light shapes and fairy-elves,
The rosebuds lay their crimson lips together,
And the green leaves are whispering to themselves ;
The clear, faint starlight on the blue wave flushes,
And, filled with odors sweet, the south wind blows,
The purple clusters load the lilac-bushes,
And fragrant blossoms fringe the apple-boughs.
Yet, I am sick with love and melancholy,
My locks are heavy with the dropping dew,
Low murmurs haunt me — murmurs soft and holy,
And oh, my lips keep murmuring, murmuring too !
I hate the beauty of these calm, sweet bowers,
The bird's wild music, and the fountain's fall;
Oh, I am sick in this lone land of flowers,
My soul is weary — weary of them all !
Yet had I that sweet face, on which I ponder,
To bloom for me within this Eden-home,
That lip to sweetly murmur when I wander,
That cheek to softly dimple when I come —
J low sweet would glide my days in these lone bowers,
Far from the world and all its heartless throngs,
Her fairy feet should only tread on flowers,
I 'd make her home melodious with my songs !
Ah me ! such blissful hopes once filled my bosom,
And dreams of fame could then my heart enthrall,
And joy and bliss around me seemed to blossom ;
But oh. those blissful hopes are blighted — all !
No smiling angel decks these Eden-bowers,
No springing footstep echoes mine in glee —
Oil, I am weary in this land of flowers!
I sigh — I sigh amid them al! — ah me !
THE OLD MAID.
WHY sits she thus in solitude? her heart
Seems melting in her eye's delicious blue —
And as it heaves, her ripe lips lie apart
As if to let its heavy throbbings through ;
In her dark eye a depth of softness swells,
Deeper than that her careless girlhood wore; '
And her cheek crimsons with the hue that tells
The rich, fair fruit is ripened to the core.
It is her thirtieth birthday ! with a sigh
Her soul hath turn'd from youth's luxuriant bowers,
And her heart taken up the last sweet tie
That measured out its links of golden hours !
She feels her inmost soul within her stir
With thoughts too wild and passionate to speak ;
Yet her full heart — its own interpreter —
Translates itself in silence on her cheek.
Joy's opening buds, affection's glowing flowers,
Once lightly sprang within her beaming track ;
Oh, life was beautiful in those lost hours,
And yet she does not wish to wander back !
No ! she but loves in loneliness to think
On pleasures past, though never more to be:
Hope links her to the future — but the link
That binds her to the past, is memory !
From her lone path she never turns aside,
Though passionate worshippers before her fall ;
Like some pure planet in her lonely pride,
She seems to soar and beam above them all !
Not that her heart is cold ! — emotions new
And fresh as flowers are with her heartstrings knit :
And sweetly mournful pleasures wander through
Her virgin soul, and softly ruffle it.
For she hath lived with heart and soul alive
To all that makes life beautiful and fair ; [hive
Sweet Thoughts, like honey-bees, have made their
Of her soft bosom-cell, and cluster there ;
Yet life is not to her what it hath been :
Her soul hath learned to look beyond its gloss —
And now she hovers like a star between
Her deeds of love — her Savior on the cross !
Beneath the cares of earth she does not bow,
Though she hath ofttimes drained its bitter cup,
But ever wanders on with heavenward brow,
And eyes whose lovely lids are lifted up !
She feels that in that lovelier, happier sphere,
Her bosom yet will, birdlike, find its mate,
And all the joys it found so blissful here
Within that spirit-realm perpetuate.
Yet, sometimes o'er her trembling heartstrings thrill
Soft sighs, for raptures it hath ne'er enjoyed —
And then she. dreams of love, and stiives to fill
With wild and passionate thoughts the craving void.
And thus she wanders on — half sad, half blest —
Without a mate for the pure, lonely heart,
That, yearning, throbs within her viigin breast,
Never to find its lovely counterpart !
AMELIA B. WELBY.
321)
MEL GDI A.
f MKT, once in my girlish hours,
A creature, soft and warm ;
Her cottage bonnet, filled with flowers,
Hung swinging on her arm ;
Her voice was sweet as the voice of Love,
And her teeth were pure as pearls,
While her forehead lay, like a snow-white dove,
In a nest of nut-brown curls ;
She was a thing unknown to fame —
Melodia was her strange, sweet name.
I never saw an eye so bright
And yet so soft as hers ;
It sometimes swam in liquid light,
And sometimes swam in tears;
It seemed a beauty, set apart
For softness and for sighs;
But oh ! Melodia's melting heart
Was softer than her eyes —
For they were only formed to spread
The softness from her spirit shed.
I've gazed on many a brighter face,
But ne'er on one, for years,
Where beauty left so soft a trace
As it had left on hers.
But who can paint the. spell, that wove
A brightness round the whole?
'T would take an angel from above
To paint the immortal soul —
To trace the light, the inborn grace,
The spirit, sparkling o'er her face.
Her bosom was a soft retreat
For love, and love alone,
And yet her heart had never beat
To Love's delicious tone.
It dwelt within its circle free
From tender thoughts like these,
Waiting the little deity,
As the blossom waits the breeze
Before it throws the leaves apart
And trembles, like the love-touched heart.
She was a creature, strange as fair,
First mournful and then wild —
Now laughing on the clear, bright air
As merry as a child,
Then, melting down, as sort as even
Beneath some new control,
She'd throw her hazel eyes to heaven
And sing with all her soul,
In tones as rich as some young bird's,
Warbling her own delightful words.
Melodia ! oh how soft thy darts,
How tender and how sweet !
Thy song enchained a thousand hearts
And drew them to thy feet ;
And, as thy bright lips sang, they caught
So beautiful a ray,
That, as I gazed, I almost thought
The spirit of thy lay
Had left, while melting on the air,
Its sweet expression painted there.
Sweet vision of that starry evon !
Thy virgin beauty yet,
Next to the blessed hope of heaven,
Is in my spirit set.
It is a something, shrined apart,
A light frorn memory shed,
To live until this tender heart,
On which it lives, is dead —
Reminding me of brighter hours,
Of summer eves and summer flowers.
TO A SEA-SHELL.
SHELL of the bright sea-waves !
What is it that we hear in thy sad moan ?
Is this unceasing music all thine own 1
Lute of the ocean-caves !
Or does some spirit dwell
In the deep windings of thy chambers dim,
Breathing for ever, in its mournful hymn,
Of ocean's anthem-swell 1
Wert thou a murmurer long
In crystal palaces beneath the seas,
Ere from the blue sky thou hadst heard the breezt
Pour its full tide of song 1
Another thing with thee :
Are there not gorgeous cities in the deep,
Buried with flashing gems that brightly sleep,
Hid by the mighty sea ?
And say, oh lone sea-shell !
Are there not cost!y things and sweet perfumes
Scattered in waste o'er that sea-gulf of tombs 1
Hush thy low moan and tell.
But yet, and more than all —
Has not each foaming wave in fury tossed
O'er earth's most beautiful, the brave, the lost,
Like a dark funeral pall ?
' Tis vain — thou answerest not !
Thou hast no voice to whisper of the dead ;
'Tis ours alone, with sighs like odors shed,
To hold them unforgot !
Thine is as sad a strain
As if the spirit in thy hidden cell
Pined to be with the many things that dwell
In the wild, restless main.
And yet there is no sound
Upon the waters, whispered by the waves,
But seemeth like a wail from many graves,
Thrilling the air around.
The earth, oh moaning shell!
The earth hath melodies more sweet than these-
The music-gush of rills, the hum of bees
Heard in each blossom's bell.
Are not these tones of earth,
The rustling forest, with its shivering leaves,
Sweeter than sounds that e'en in moonlit eves
Upon the seas have birth ?
Alas ! thou still wilt moan —
Thou'rt like the heart that wastes itself in signs
E'en when amid bewildering melodies,
If parted from its own.
830
AMELIA B. WELBY.
THE LAST INTERVIEW.
HKHK, in this lonely bower where first T won thee,
I come, beloved, beneath the moon's pale ray,
To gaze once more through struggling tears upon
And then to bear my broken heart away, [thee,
I dare not linger near thee as a brother,
I feel my burning heart would still be thine ;
Ho w could I hope my passionate thoughts to smother,
While vieldirig all the sweetness to another,
That should be mine !
But Fate hath willed it; the decree is spoken ;
Now life may lengthen out its weary chain ;
For, reft of thee, its loveliest links are broken ,
May we but clasp them all in heaven again !
Yes, thou wilt there be mine: in yon blue heaven
There are sweet meetings of the pure and fond ;
Oh ! joys unspeakable to such are given,
When the sweet ties of love, that here are riven,
Unite beyond.
A glorious charm from heaven thou dost inherit;
The gift of angels unto thee belongs ;
Then breathe thy love in music, that thy spirit
May whisper to me thro' thine own sweet songs ;
And though my coming life may soon resemble
The desert spots through v. hich my steps will flee,
Though round thee then wild worshippers assemble,
My heart will triumph if thine own but tremble
Still true to me.
Yet, not when on our bower the light reposes
In golden glory, wilt thou sigh for me —
Not when the young bee seeks the crimson roses,
And the far sunbeams tremble o'er the sea ;
But when at eve the tender heart grows fonder,
And the full soul with pensive love is fraught,
Then with wet lids o'er these sweet paths thou 'It
wander,
And, thrilled with love, upon my memory ponder
With tender thought.
And when at times thy birdlike voice entrances
The listening throng with some enchanting lay,
If I am near thee, let thy heavenly glances
One gentle message to my heart convey ;
I ask but this — a happier one has taken
From my lone life the charm that made it dear ;
I ask but this, and promise thee unshaken
To meet that look of love : but oh, 'twill awaken
Such rapture^ here !
And now farewell ! farevvell ! I dare not lengthen
These sweet, sad moments out; to gaze on thee
Is bliss indeed, yet it but serves to strengthen
The love that now amounts to agony ;
This is our last farewell, our last fond meeting;
The world is wide, and we must dwell apart ;
My spirit gives thee, now, its last wild greeting,
With lip to lip, while pulse to pulse is beating,
And heart to heart.
I ttrewell ! farewell ! our dream of bliss is over —
All. sa-e the memory of our plighted love;
I now must yield thee to thy happier lover,
Yet, oh remember, thou art mine above !
T i<; 3 sweet thought, and, when by distance parted,
'Twill lie upon our hearts a holy spell ;
But the sad tears beneath thy lids have started,
Arid I — alas ! we both are broken-hearted—
Dearest, farewell!
MY SISTEHS.
LIKK flowers that soft!y bloom together,
Upon one fair and fragile stem,
Mingling their sweets in sunny weather
Ere strange, rude hands have parted them.
So were we linked unto each other,
Sweet sisters, in our childish hours,
For then one fond and gentle mother
To us was like the stem to flowers ;
She was the golden thread that bound us
In one bright chain together here,
Till Death unloosed the cord around us,
And we were severed far and near.
The floweret's stem, when broke or shattered,
Must cast its b.ossoms to the wind,
Yet, round the buds, though widely scattered.
The same soft perfume still we find;
And thus, a' though the tie is broken
That linked us round our mother's knee,
The memory of words we've spoken,
When we were children light and free,
Will, like the perfume of each blossom,
Live in our hearts where'er we roam,
As when we s!ept on one fond bosom,
And dwelt within one happy home.
I know that changes have come o'er us ,
Sweet sisters ! we are not the same,
For different paths now lie before us,
And a'l three have a different name;
And yet, if Sorrow's dimming fingers
Have shadowed o'er each youthful brow,
So much of light around them lingers
I can not trace those shadows now.
Ye both have those who love ye only,
Whose dearest hopes are round you thrown,
While, like a stream that wanders wildly,
Am I, the youngest, wildest one.
My heart is like the wind, that beareth
Sweet scents upon its unseen wing —
The wind ! that for no creature careth,
Yet stealeth sweets from everything;
It hath rich thoughts for ever leaping
Up, like the waves of flashing seas,
That with their music still are keeping
Soft time with every fitful breeze ;
Each leaf that in the bright air quivers,
The sounds from hidden solitudes,
And the deep flow of far-off rivers,
And the loud rush of many floods :
All these, and more, stir in my bosom
Feelings that make my spirit glad,
Like dewdrops shaken in a blossom ;
And yet there is a something sad
Mixed with those thought^, like clouds, that hover
Above us in the quieter,
Veiling the moon's pale beauty over,
Like a dark spirit brooding there.
AMELIA B. WELBY.
sai
But, sisters ! those wild thoughts were never
Yours : ye would not love, like me,
To gaze upon the stars for ever,
To hear the wind's wild melody.
Ye'd rather look on smiling faces,
And linger round a cheerful hearth,
Than mark the stars' bright hiding-places
As they peep out upon the earth.
But, sisters ! as the stars of even
Shrink from Day's go'den-flashing eye,
And, melting in the depths of heaven,
Veil their soft beams within the sky ;
So shall we pass, the joyous-hearted,
The fond, the young, like stars that wane,
Till every link of earth he parted,
To form in heaven one mystic chain.
MUSINGS.
I WANDERED out one summer night,
'T was when my years were few,
The wind was singing in the light,
And I was singing too;
The sunshine lay upon the hill,
The shadow in the vale,
And here and there a leaping rill
Was laughing on the gale.
One fleecy cloud upon the air
Was all that met my eyes ;
It floated like an angel there
Between me and the skies;
I clapped my hands and warbled wild.
As here and there I flew,
For I was but a careless child,
And did as children do.
The waves came dancing o'er the sea
In bright and glittering bands ;
Like little children, wild with glee,
They linked their dimpled hands —
They linked their hands, but, ere I caught
Their sprinkled drops of dew,
They kissed my feet, and, quick as thought,
Away the ripples flew.
The twilight hours, like birds, flew by,
As lightly and as free ;
Ten thousand stars were in the sky,
Ten thousand on the sea ;
For every wave with dimpled face,
That leaped upon the air,
Had caught a star in its embrace,
And held it trembling there.
The young moon, too, with upturned sides
Her mirrored beauty gave,
And, as a bark at anchor rides,
She rode upon the wave ;
The sea was like the heaven above,
As perfect and as whole,
Save that it seemed to thrill with love
As thrills the immortal soul.
The leaves, by spirit-voices stirred,
Made murmurs on the air,
Low murmurs, that my spirit heard
And answered with a prayer ;
For 'twas upon that dewy sod,
Beside the moaning seas.
I learned at first to worship God
And sing such strains as these.
The flowers, all folded to their dreams,
Were bowed in slumber free
By breezy hills and murmuring streams,
Where'er they chanced to be ;
No guilty tears had they to weep,
No sins to be forgiven ;
They closed their leaves and went to sleep
'Neath the blue eye of heaven !"
No costly robes upon them shone,
No jewels from the seas,
Yet Solomon upon his throne
Was ne'er arrayed like these ;
And just as free from guilt and art
Were lovely human flowers,
Ere Sorrow set her bleeding heart
On this fair world of ours.
I heard the laughing wind behind
A-playing with my hair ;
The breezy fingers of the wind —
How cool and moist they were !
I heard the night-bird warbling o'er
Its soft, enchanting strain :
I never heard such sounds before,
And never shall again.
Then wherefore weave such strains as these,
And sing them day by day,
When every bird upon the breeze
Can sing a sweeter lay 1
I'd give the world for their sweet art,
The simple, the divine —
I'd give the world to melt one heart
As they have melted mine !
THE LITTLE STEP-SOX.
I HAVE a little step-son,
The loveliest thing alive:
A noble, sturdy bov is he,
And yet he's only five;
His smooth cheek hath a blooming glow,
His eyes are black as jet,
And his lips are like two rosebuds,
All tremulous and wet :
His days pass off in sunshine,
In laughter, and in song,
As care'ess as a summer rill,
That sings itself along ;
For like a pretty fairy tale.,
That's all too quickly told,
Is the young life of a little one
That's only five years old.
He 's dreaming on his happy couch
Before the day grows dark,
He's up with morning's rosy ray
A-singing. with the lark;
Where'er the flowers are freshest,
Where'er the grass is green,
With light locks waving on the wind
His fairy form is seen,
332
AMELIA B. WE LEY.
Amid the whistling March winds,
Amid the April showers;
He warbles with the singing birds
And blossoms with the flowers ;
He cares not for the summer heat,
He cares not for the cold —
My sturdy litt'e step-son,
That's only five years old.
How touching 'tis to see him clasp
His dimpled hands in prayer,
4 nd raise his little rosy face
With reverential air !
How simple is his eloquence,
How soft his accents fall,
When pleading with the King of kings
To love and bless us all !
And when from prayer he bounds away
In innocence and jov,
The blessing of a smiling God
Goes with the sinless boy ;
A little lambkin of the flock,
Within the Savior's fold,
Is he my lovely step-son,
That's only five years old.
I have not told you of our home,
That in the summer hours
Stands in its simple modesty
Half hid among the flowers ;
I have not said a single word
About our mines of wealth —
Our treasures are this little boy,
Contentment, peace, and health ;
For even a lordly hall to us
Would be a voiceless place
Without the gush of his glad voice,
The gleams of his bright face :
And many a court'y pair, I ween.
Would give their gems and gold
For a noble, happv boy, like ours,
Some four or five years old.
THE PRESENCE OF GOD.
0 THOIT, who flingst so fair a robe
Of clouds around the hills untrod —
Those mountain-pillars of the globe,
Whose peaks sustain thy throne, 0 God
All glittering round the sunset skies,
Their trembling folds are lightly furled,
As if to shade from mortal eyes
The glories of yon upper world ;
There, while the evening star upholds
In one bright spot their purple folds,
My spirit lifts its silent prayer,
For thou, the God of love, art there.
The summer flowers, the fair, the sweet,
Upspringing freely from the sod,
In whose soft looks we seem to meet
At every step thy smiles, O God !
The humblest soul their sweetness shares.
They bloom in palace-hall, or cot ;
Give me, O Lord ! a heart like theirs,
Contented with my lowly lot!
Within their pure, ambrosial bells,
In odors sweet, thy Spirit dwells ;
Their breath may seem to scent the air —
'T is thine, O God ! for thou art there.
List ! from yon casement low and dim
What sounds are these that fili the L»reeze 1
It is the peasant's evening hymn
Arrests the fisher on the seas :
The old man leans his silver hairs
Upon his light-suspended oar,
Until those soft, delicious airs
Have died like ripples on the shore.
Why do his eyes in softness roll ?
What melts the manhood from his soul ?
His heart is filled with peace and prayer,
For thou, O God ! art with him there.
The birds among the summer blooms
Pour forth to thee their strains of love,
When, trembling on uplifted plumes,
They leave the earth and soar above ;
WTe hear their sweet, familiar airs
W'here'er a sunny spot is found ;
How lovely is a life like theirs,
Diffusing sweetness all around !
From clime to clime, from pole to pole,
Their sweetest anthems softly roll,
Till, melting on the realms of air,
Thy still, small voice seems whispering there.
The stars, those floating isles of liffht,
Round which the clouds unfurl their sails.
Pure as a woman's robe of white
That trembles round the form it veils,
They touch the heart as with a spell,
Yet, set Ihe soaring fancy free,
And oh how sweet the tales they tell !
They tell of peace, of love, and thee !
Each raging storm that wildly blows,
Each balmy gale that lifts the rose,
Sublimely grand, or softly fair,
They speak of thee, for thou art there,
The spirit oft oppressed with doubt,
May strive to cast thee from its thought,
But who can shut thy presence out,
Thou mighty Guest that com'st unsought !
In spite of all our cold resolves,
Whate'er our thoughts, where'er we be,
Still magnet-like the heart revolves,
And points, all trembling, up to thee;
We can not shield a troubled breast
Beneath the confines of the blest,
Above, below, on earth, in air,
For thou the living God art there.
Yet, far beyond the clouds outspread,
Where soaring Fancy oft hath been,
There is a land where thou hast said
The pure of heart shall enter in ;
In those far realms so calmly bright
How many a loved and gentle one
Bathes its soft plumes in living light
That sparkles from thy radiant throne !
There souls, once soft and sad as ours,
Look up and sing mid fadeless flowers ;
They dream nc more of grief and care,
For thou, the God of peace, art there.
CATHERINE WARFIELD AND ELEANOR LEE.
CATHERINE ANN WARE and ELEANOR PER
CY WARE, daughters of the Hon. Nathaniel
Ware, of Mississippi, were born near the ci
ty of Natchez. After studying several years
in the best seminaVies of their native state,
they completed their education in one of the
most fashionable schools of Philadelphia, af
ter leaving which they passed some time in
travel, and became known in many brilliant
circles for the vivacious grace of their man
ners and their fine intelligence. Their home
beside the " Father of Waters" was exchang
ed for one in Cincinnati, and during the resi
dence of Judge Ware in that city they were
married : the eldest to Mr. Warfield, of Lex
ington, Kentucky, and the other to Mr. Lee,
then of Vicksburg, and now of a place called
Bachelor's Bend, about twelve miles from
the Mississippi river.
Their first appearance in the literary world
was in a volume entitled The Wife of Leon,
and other Poems, by Two Sisters of the West,
printed in New York in 1843. It consisted
principally of fruits of desultory repose from
the excitements of society — short pieces,
written to wile away time, and gratify a taste
for composition — without a thought that they
would ever meet the eyes of strangers; and
it was riot until urged to do so by several
friends distinguished for their abilities in lit
erature, that they consented to the wishes of
their father in giving them to the press.
The reception of these poems vindicated
their publication. They were reviewed with
many expressions of approval in the most
critical journals, and with especial praise in
The New York Evening Post and The New
Mirror, conducted by two poets, of very dif
ferent characters, but both destined to places
among the standard authors of the age and
country. A second edition of this volume
appeared, under the names of the authors, in
Cincinnati, in the autumn of 1848.
In 1846 Mrs. Warfield and Mrs. lee pub
lished a new collection of their writings, un
der the title of The Indian Chamber and other
Poems, in which there is evinced a very de
cided advancement in reflection, feeling and
art. They exhibit more readiness of epithet
and imagery, from the observation of nature
and the experience of life, and have more
meaning and earnestness.
We have in neither volume any intima
tion of the respective shares of the authors
in its production, but it would not have es
caped the detection of the most careless read
ers that the poems are by different hands, of
very different though perhaps not very une
qual powers. Among them are many speci
mens of ingenious and happy fancy, of bold
and distinct painting, and of tasteful, harmo
nious, and sometimes sparkling versification ;
but not a few of them would have been much
better if the authors had recollected that the
word " thing" can never be properly applied
to a human intelligence except in expression
of contempt, and that " redolent," " fraught,"
"glee, "and some half dozen other pet phrases
of poetasters, convenient enough for rhyming
and filling out lines, have, from the manner
in which they are commonly applied, become
offensive, unless used sparingly and with the
most exact propriety. Illustrations of the
fault to which we refer — a fault by no means
peculiar to the "Two Sisters of the West,"
— may be found in that line of The Bird of
Washington, in which the soul is styled
A proud, triumphant thing:
and in Remorse, where the word "adored,"
which is as sacred to one purpose as the He
brew characters that syllabled the highest
name of the Creator, and which expresses no
possible extravagance of feeling toward a hu
man being, is used for loved, or — though
this would be in very bad taste — for to?r-
s hipped.
The two volumes that have been referred
to do not comprise all nor perhaps the best
of the compositions of their authors. They
are both experienced and successful writers
of prose, and Mrs. Warfield has written a
novel, that, if published under her real name,
would surprise those who have formed th«
most favorable estimates of her powers, by
its fine description, genial wit, and criticism
of society and manners.
333
334
CATHERINE WARFIELD AND ELEANOR LEE.
REMORSE.
THE clay had died in splendor royally,
Mid draperies of purple and of gold,
And crimson banners waving o'er its bier;
And the last yellow tints were fading fast
From earth and sea, and paling in the west
Into that vague, gray shadow which comes down
Over the breast of Nature, as deep thought
Upon the human spirit. Strangely linked
With all the deeper yearnings of the soul —
The secrets of the inner fane — art thou,
Mysterious Twilight ! thou, who didst prevail
O'er Chaos with a drear and brooding weight,
And hadst a name ere night and day began.
Still, in thine ancient guise, thou walkst the earth,
Thou shadow of the Almighty ! and ca 1st up
Conscience, and Thought, and Memory, that sleep
Through the glad, busy day and dreaming night,
In long and sad array. There lives not one
O'er whom thine influence falls not mournfully ;
Thou art prophetic to the few who boast
A happy past, and with thy shadowy hand
Seemest to lift a corner of the veil
That shuts their present from futurity.
And to the mourning spirit thou revealest
Pale, haunting faces — lost, yet loved not less
Than when they knew no better home than earth,
And wore a human guise. But in the soul
Where lies a hidden sting of pain and wrong,
Of vain regret, or, darker still, remorse —
Thou bringst, O shadowy Twilight, brooding gloom,
And dearth, and restlessness, and agony !
Within a southern garden, where the breath
Of flowers went up like incense, and the plash
Of falling fountains made a murmuring voice
Of music sweet, yet same, there paced a man
Restlessly to and fro : the lingering light
Fell on his features, pale and beautiful
As those of the old statues, and with much
Of the ideal tenderness that breathed
Around the marble, till it rivalled life —
Yet with a latent sternness, lurking still
About the august, high forehead, and the lip,
And the fine, sweeping profile, that recalled
Yet more a statue's strong similitude.
But wild and stormy changes now o'ercast
Those noble features-— sick and wringing pain,
Then shuddering shame, anxiety, despair :
These, plainly as my hand hath traced the words,
Were written on his aspect ; and a prayer —
Which, in its brief and utter desolateness,
Bears more of misery than any boon
A human heart may crave — oft left his lip,
Unconscious of its utterance: " Oh, my God,
Let me forget — or suffer me to die !"
A step was near him. Suddenly he turned,
And bent a long, sad gaze on one whose touch
Jfad broken the dark spell ; whose white hand lay
Yet on his arm in tenderness; whose eyes
Were raised with such intensity of love, [down,
They touched the springs of tears. Then he bowed
And veiling in his hand his quivering face,
Wept silently and long ; while mournfully
over him that ange» minister,
Whose love alone poured balm into his wound,
And shone a star o'er the dark waste of life.
Still in that southern garden lingered they,
The pa'e and suffering man, and she who seemed
The genius of his fate. The stars were met
In starry conclave in their halls above,
And the moon, in the deep and quiet heaven,
Rose high amid a maze of fleecy clouds,
Toward the noon of night. Beneath a bower
Where breathed the odorous jessamine, they sat
Communing of the irrevocable past.
His voice was lifted in the solemn night
In passionate remorse : he, who had stood
At morn within the crowded council-hall,
Pouring abroad a gush of eloquence
That stirred the heart as with a trumpet-note,
That called up Feeling from its inmost cell,
And followed Motive to its hidden source,
And touched the electric chain of Memory,
Until the mighty mass became as one
Sentient and breathing soul beneath his spell ,
He, the adored, the proud, the eloquent,
The stateliest amid men, now filled the hush
Of night with dark bewai lings, while each pause
Of that sad, thrilling voice, was filled by tones
Unutterably musical and soft,
Urging Love's fondest prayer :
" Be calm, mine own !
The strife was not thy seeking : thou didst bear,
(Thou, who art fearless as an eagle plumed,)
With saintlike meekness, much of taunt and wrong,
Much scorn and injury, ere they could urge
Thy hand against the man thou lovest so well —
Ay, with a brother's tenderness. Be firm ;
Turn from such memories." He arose, and paced
The moonlight bower with folded arms, and head
Bowed to his breast. " They haunt me yet," he said,
" That manly form, those large, dark, joyous eyes,
The stately step, the sweet, fresh, ringing laugh,
(Marion ! it was a sound that had no peer,
Save at a fountain, at its freshest source,
Gushing through mountain clefts,) these, these arise,
Darkly and terribly. These haunt me still.
"I would forgetfulness were mine! full oft
That old wild tale of oriental lands
Comes back with all its witchery to my brain,
Fresh as when o'er its page I hung entranced
In my glad boyhood, 'neath the summer boughs.
The waters of oblivion ! where are they.
Those crystal waters in their marble font 1
For one deep draught I would surrender all
The eloquence, the power, the wealth, the fame,
That I have made mine own — all, all, save thee,
And go with toiling hands and hopeful heart
Forth on the waste of life ! Forgetfulness —
I ask but this !" He paused, and choking back
A tide of agony, went on once more
In calmer tones : " It is not oft, mine own —
Believe me — oh ! not often that my soul
Opens her prison chambers, and gives forth
Her captive anguish. Even in solitude
My habit is not this ; and thou hast known,
Hitherto, from some gloomy mood alone,
Some sad, fantastic humor, some wild dream,
Whose mutterings startled thee from midnight sleep
CATHERINE WARFIELD .\ND ELEANOR LEE.
»3fi
To. fearfu' watches — something of the spell
That binds me, as the serpent binds the bird
Help essly in its strong and poisonous coils.
But there are times when, armed with fearful
strength,
Burst from their stony cells those prisoners pale,
Those memories that may not, will not die,
Those agonies that keep a quenchless flame
Burning within their dungeons, as of old
'J he virgins of the Sun fed, day and night,
T. cir fire for ages. These arise to daunt,
To taunt me wildly, and I leave the halls,
The haunts of men — even from thy presence flee,
Often to the dark forest, or the brink
Of the deep-moaning and unresting sea,
To battle with the fiend !"
Again that voice,
Clear as a silver lute, and redolent
With love and hope, fi'Ied the deep hush of pain :
"Thy virtues, thy profound humility,
Thy chanty for all, thy tenderness,
Thy genius, which on eagles' wings ascends
Above the arrows of thine enemies,
A star for men, a light for after-times —
Ay, more than these, thy deep and stern remorse :
Shall not these prove atonement at the shrine
Of God, for that one deed — not all thine own,
But forced upon thee by fatality;
A sorrow, riot a crime !"
" It is in vain" —
He spoke as one in utter hopelessness — •
'• Marion ! thy gentle sophistry is vain ;
I have essayed that specious reasoning
That would wipe out, from hands imbrued in blood,
The dark, the gory stain. Much have I striven
To call up all my wrongs, and these array
Against the moment when my hand unloosed
A spirit from its tenement of clay.
I have remembered all my injuries,
Lived o'er again our feuds ; recalled his wild
And insolent insults — nay, the very blow
That maddened me.
Yet have all these failed,
As mists before the red, uprising sun.
Compared to that brief instant. I wou'd give
Life, that once more those lips were here to heap
Their bitterest imprecations on my head ;
'J hat hand again, a portion of our mould,
That smote me, harshly, undeservedly ;
That haughty heart still beating high with wrath,
O'er which the sod now presses heavily —
Or that I lay beside him in the grave !
I am not self-deluded. I am borne
By some invisible agency along
To power, to fame ; and inspiration hangs
About my lips that startles me at times,
Even as the crowd is startled; and I feel
That 1 am changed— that with intensity
Of thought and passion, genius was aroused,
Born, like the wondrous bird of Araby,
From ashes, desolation, and from death.
A giant earthquake hath thrown up to light
The gems that sparkled in the secret mine,
But overwhelmed the blossoms that made fair
Earth's bosom. Never, never more
The earnestness, the loveliness of life,
Shall shine on me ! Its fitful glare alone
Illumines my ill-ordered destiny ;
And in the wild excitement of the crowd,
The clamor of the multitude, the voice
Of adulation, and the strife for fame,
I lose alone the memory of my doom.
The torchlight of existence still remains :
Its sunlight hath departed, and as flame
Consumes the a'iment that feeds its life,
And self-destroyed expires — so must my soul
Perish amid its ashes.
, Nay ! the time
Is near, my Marion, when this voice shall cease
To pour its bitter plainings on thine ear ;
A sickness and a weariness have crept
Of late across my spirit, and a vague
And dreamy craving for reality —
For all things seem like shadows. Men move by
As forms we dimly see in midnight dreams;
And the vast crowd, with all its upcast heads,
Seems often a phantasma to mine eyes.
All but the sense of one great agony,
And that is like the sea, unslumbering —
And that is like the stars, unchangeable — '•
Ay, deep and constant as my love for thee,
Is that remorse !"
She clung to him, she bathed
His brow with tears. She did not speak, she knew
How vain the task to soothe such agony.
But mutely in her bleeding heart she prayed
The mood might pass, or that the oblivious grave
Might close o'er both.
They rose at last, and traced
Through a dim, intricate path, where orange-boughs
Made sweet the earth beneath their feet, the way
To their majestic home ; and through its halls
Arid colonnades of marble, where up sprang
Many a low-voiced fountain, many a shaft
Of porphyry, and marble bearing up
Vases of antique splendor, filled with flowers,
They passed in silence and in gloom of soul,
Even as those shapes that move, a restless throng,
Within the halls of Eblis. — Peace be theirs !
DEATH ON THE PRAIRIE.
IT was a morn of autumn : wide, and vast,
And boundless, to the eyes of those who gazed
Upon its waste of verdure, as the sea,
The prairie stretched away ; and through its Ion,;
Luxuriant grass the breath of morning crept,
Swaying its flexile blades, until they rose
And fell in masses like the ocean-waves,
And rendered, like those billows of the deep,
The sunbeam's splendor back, for yet the dews
WTere on their mobile surface.
In this wide
Monotony of beauty there appeared
One landmark only for the weary eye,
And that was but a wreathing cloud of smoke.
Uprising from the fires of those who made
A temporary sojourn on that waste
Of verdure. They had paused where burst a sprirg
336
CATHERINE WARFIELD AND ELEANOR LEE.
Up from the very sod, and made its way
Quietly through the grass; a silver stream,
Narrow and winding, and almost unseen
At a few paces from its humble source.
Here had they sadly rested, for the sake
Of one whose weariness of heart and limb
Demanded such repose, and whose parched lips
Drank eagerly and gratefully their last
Refreshment from the waters of the wild.
She lay upon the rude and hasty couch
Which kindly hands had framed, that dying girl,
And gazed upon the blue, autumnal sky,
With something half ecstatic in her pale
And parted lips, and in her large blue eyes,
And in the folding of her wan, slight hands,
Clasped as in prayer.
She had besought them not
To raise between her and the firmament
Shelter or shade. It was her dying wish
To feel the breeze, the sunlight, on her brow ;
For she was one, though lowly of descent,
Imbued with fine perceptions, and the high
And spiritual love of Nature long
Had made its home and altar in her heart :
She seemed not of the mould of those who hung
In watchful love around her.
It may be
That Death, the.chastener, from her lineaments
Had banished all the dross of earthly thought,
And stamped the impress of the angel there.
The loveliness of that seraphic face
No marble might surpass — nor in the halls
Of princely dwellings, where the beautiful
Wear the fine delicacy of the flower,
Hath eye beheld a brow more beautiful
Than hers, the daughter of the emigrant.
The deep solemnity of hopeless grief
Reigned o'er the band of kindred wayfarers —
A silence only broken by the low
And pleading voice of one who knelt beside
The perishing girl, and clasped her chilling hands,
And wiped the dews from her transparent brow
With the devoted tenderness of despair.
Silent and stern, with folded arms, and lips
Compressed in agony, the father stood,
And gazed upon the li!y of his race
Broken and crushed ; and the strong, swarthy lines
Of his embrowned and manly countenance
Seemed deeper ploughed by that short space of grief
Than all its years of toil, of change, of pain.
And silent, too, the brothers grouped around,
Yet shaken in their stillness, as the pines
That bow their stately crests before the winds;
Arid prone on earth her youthful sister lay,
With hidden face, and low, convulsive sobs.
But, to the last, the mother faltered not:
She who had cherished to idolatry
That young, frail creature, and divided her
With an impassible devotedness
From all things else on earth. She who had erred
In the injustice of her tenderness,
And poured the vials of maternal love
A thousand-fold on one — she faltered not,
But with a bursting heart put back the tide
Of anguish and despair, and lifted up
Her soul with that already plumed for heaven,
And strove to smoothe the bitterness of death
With words of consolation, peace, and prayer,
And' holy inspiration.
" Sing to me,
Kind mother; sing to me that old sweet hymn,
Which in our village church so solemnly
Welcomed each sabbath day : I well believe
That, even mid the harmonies of saints,
It will return to me/'
'T was difficult
To take from agony a voice for song ;
Yet the devoted mother poured the strain
Of holy beauty on the dying ear,
That seemed to drink its melody with joy,
And stifled the deep groans that often strove
To pass her lips. Hers was heroic love.
Unheeded by the mourning band, a child —
A bright-haired boy — had wandered from their fires
To gather prairie-flowers, and now returned
With a rich store of fragrance and of bloom,
And with the impulse of a loving heart
Showered the rich blossoms on his sister's breast.
She turned her face to his, illumined with
A smile of most benignant tenderness,
And claspii% in her own his rosy hands,
She gave into his trust a solemn charge :
" Be true to man, to God : be staff and stay
To our beloved parents ; falter not
In the good path — and we shall meet again !"
Simple those words, and few : yet shall they cling
Upon his brain while Memory holds her seat,
And with their serious tenderness and truth
Charm, like a talisman, his soul from wrong.
The hours wore on, and gradually the face
Of the departing maiden more and more
Revealed the hand of the victorious king.
The strife was almost over — if, indeed,
Strife might be called that ebbing of the tide
Of pain, of consciousness, of life away.
Yet still there was a duty unfulfilled — •
A prayer unuttered — and it was the last
That left the wan lips of the fainting girl,
Breathed on a mother's ear :
" Wfhen I a in gone,
Take from my breast a curl of raven hair,
And mingle with it one long braid of mine —
Then send them home to him ; and say I died
Peacefully — trusting he would turn away
From his dark course of passion and of sin,
And meet me there !"
She raised her hand on high :
It fell a lifeless thing — a tremor shook
Her delicate frame, as the breeze shakes the flower,
And life was gone !
They broke the sod of flowers,
And made her virgin grave beside the spring
Which laved her dying brow, and went their way
Across the wilderness.
Nor is there aught
To mark her lone and distant resting-place;
The human eye might seek in vain to trace
The vestige of her last repose, amid
The long, rank grass that shadows all the eartl
But angels know the spot, and guard it well.
CATHERINE WARFIELD AND ELEANOR LEE.
LEGEND OF THE INDIAN CHAMBER.
" BASIL ! set my house in order.
For, when I return to-day,
I shall bring with me a stranger,
Tarrying on his homeward way.
Open fling the Indian Chamber,
And the arras free from mould;
There array a goodly banquet,
Such as cheered my sires of old —
When, from chase or war returning,
Dukes and princes of my line,
From the evening till the morning,
Filled the cup and drained the wine."
" Master, in thy lordly castle
There are many halls of pride,
Where no damps the walls encumber —
Where no spells of gloom abide.
In the gallery of the Titans,
In the hall of Count Lothaire,
In the grand saloon of columns,
Better had ye banquet there.
But the dreary Indian Chamber,
Oh ! bethink you, master mine —
There have slept, in mortal slumber,
All the princes of your line.
" There the mourners ever gather,
Forth to bear the noble dead —
There you saw your stately father,
And your noble brother laid ;
There, save in these times of anguish,
Never, since my life began,
Entered in a ray of sunlight,
Or the step of mortal man.
And the sounds of mystic meaning —
Master ! need I speak of these ] —
Which from that lone eastern chamber
Meet the ear — the spirit freeze !"
With a brow of haughty pallor,
Straight the baron turned away,
In a scornful accent saying,
"'Tis my mandate, slave! — obey."
Then in haste, with gloomy aspect,
Forth he went upon his steed,
Rushing headlong on his pathway,
Like an evil spirit freed.
And with sad and stricken spirit,
Basil watched his lord depart,
While a dark and evil omen,
Hearse-like, pressed upon his heart.
Long he lingered at the portal,
Bound as with a gloomy dream;
Long he looked upon the landscape,
Which before him ceased to seem ;
Then, with low and prayerful mutterings,
Shaking oft his tresses gray,
Clasping oft his withered fingers,
Basil went upon his way.
Passed he up the ancient stairway,
Groped he through the echoing aisle,
Where, to seek the olden chapel,
Oft had passed a kingly file.
22
Climbed he the remotest turret
Of that castle grand and vast,
And before the Indian Chamber
Wearily he paused at last :
Yes, a moment there he faltered,
He who oft had stood the shock
Of the hottest, fiercest battle,
Firm as a primeval rock.
On the bolt his fingers trembled,
Scarcely could their strength unclose
The immense and ponderous fastening,
Rusted by its long repose.
Yet a moment — yet a moment,
Ere the door was open flung,
Paused the old and awe-struck Basil,
Fervent avcs on his tongue.
As if Heaven his prayer had answered,
Peace and comfort round him stole,
And a calm and lofty courage
Nerved his hand and filled his soul.
With a slight, yet sudden effort,
Back the oaken door he threw,
And upon the darkened threshold
Stood the fearful place to view.
Dark and dreary was that chamber,
Which in lengthened gloom appeared,
With its dark and mystic arras,
Wrought in symbols wild and weird.
Lifelike were the gorgeous figures,
Giantlike they seemed to loom
In the dim, imperfect twilight
Of that long-forsaken room.
Warily the old man entered :
With a solemn step he trod
Through the drear and dark apartment,
Trusting to his fathers' God.
In the ample hearth he kindled
Brands that, in departed days,
Quenched and blackened, had been left there-
Strange and ghostly seemed their blaze.
And upon the marble table
Ranged the regal store of plate,
And arrayed the goodly banquet,
As became his master's state :
Urn, and vase, and chalice, brimming
With the floods of ruby wine,
As beseemed the dukes and princes
Of that mighty Norman line.
Then he silently betook him
To his first-appointed task —
Wiping from the ancient arras
Many a spot of mould and mask.
But the dark and loathing horror,
It befits me not to speak,
Which, while still his task pursuing,
Shook his hand, and blanched his cheek
For he could not but remember
How, in long-departed years,
Woven was that wondrous fabric
By the spells of Indian seers.
Wrought with themes of Hindoo storj.
• Lifelike, in their coloring bold,
Yemen's fall, and Vishnu's glory.
Was that arras quaint and old
338
CATHERINE WARFIELD AND ELEANOR LEE.
Juggernaut's remorseless chariot,
Funeral pyre, and temp'e proud,
Bungalow, and rajah's palace,
With their strange and motley crowd;
Jungle low, and flower-crowned river,
Dancing-girls, with anklets bright —
These, like gorgeous dreams of fever,
Crowded on the gazer's sight.
And the long and twisting serpents,
And the tigers crouching grim,
Seemed the dark and fearful guardians
Of that Indian Chamber dim.
To the simple, earnest spirit
Of the old and faithful man.
For a Christian hand to touch them,
Was to merit Christian ban.
Saint and martyr inly calling,
Still he wrought his master's will,
When a terror more appalling
Caused his very veins to chill.
In that dreary Indian Chamber,
Strangely grand and desolate,
With its long and hearse-!ike hangings,
Stood a plumed bed of state.
Closed around with solemn mystery
As a kingly purple pall,
High it towered, a silent history
Of departed funeral.
And with eyes amazed — distended
By their dread and spell-bound look — •
Basil gazed in stony horror :
Lo ! the trailing curtains shook.
And a groan of hollow anguish
From the close-drawn hangings broke,
As if one for ages sleeping
Suddenly to torture woke.
God of terror ! — slowly parted
By a wan and spectral hand,
BacK were drawn the purple curtains —
Back, as with a spirit wand :
And a face of ghostly beauty,
With its dark and streaming hair,
And its eyes of ghoul-like brightness,
Seemed upon his sense to glare.
How in that terrific moment
Basil's senses kept their throne,
Is alone to God and angels
In its wondrous mystery known.
How he gathered faith and firmness
To uplift his ag'd hand,
And address the disembodied,
Man may never understand :
Save that in the ghostly features
Still a semblance he descried
To the high and lovely lady
\Vrho had been his master's bride.
" Tn the name of God the Father,
In the name of God the Son,
In the name of a'l good angels,
Speak to me, unearthly one !
Answer why, from wave returning,
Moanest thou in anguish here ;
Surely for some holy purpose
I Thou art suffered to appear.
If for evil I defy thee,
By the cross upon my breast,
By my faith in life eternal,
And my yearning hope for rest."
Then with moveless lips the phantom
Spake in low and hollow tones,
As if shaped to words and meaning
Were the night-wind's hollow moans.
" Basil ! darkly was I murdered
Sailing on the river Rhine,
By thy harsh and ruthless master,
Last of an illustrious line.
False the tale his lips have uttered,
Fa'.sc the tears his eyes have shed —
I was hurled upon the water
With the marks of murder red !
" Basil ! thou art good and faithful :
Thee I charge, by hopes divine,
With a hundred chanted masses
Shrive my soul by Mary's shrine.
None shall stay thy holy fervor,
None forbid the sacred rite ;
For thy master's life is destined
To expire in crime to-night !"
Fixed in awe, the aged Basil
Gazing on the spectre stood ;
But not with the waning phantom
Passed away his icy mood.
Long in that drear Indian Chamber,
Like a form of sculptured stone,
Kept the old and awe-struck servant
Vigil terrible and lone ;
Till the sound of coining footsteps,
And of voices loud and clear,
And of ringing spur and sabre,
Smote upon his spell-bound ear:
And in haste the door was opened,
And with high and plumed crest
Entered in the noble baron,
Ushering in a foreign guest.
" Basil ! all is dark and sombre ;
Cast fresh fagots on the hearth,
And illume the silver sconces
To preside above our mirth.
Let the chamber glow like sunlight ;
111 this gloom befits our glee."
Then loud laughed the stately baron —
Seldom, seldom so laughed he.
'Twas a sound that chilled with terror
All that knew his nature well:
'Twas the heaven's electric flashing
Ere the bolt of lightning fell.
Now the chamber glowed like sunl'uht-
Strange and wondrous in that glare
Was the weird and ancient arras,
Were the figures woven there ;
Wavering with the flickering torches
Seemed the motley multitude ;
Twisting serpent, rolling chariot,
All with ghostly life imbued ;
CATHERINE WARFIELD AND ELEANOR LEE.
Crouching tiger — hideous idol —
All that grand and splendid masque.
Mixture strange of truth and fable,
As in sunshine seemed to bask.
" Long have I sojourned in India,"
Thus the lofty stranger said;
"There, for wealth and idle treasure,
Health, and youth, and blood, I shed.
And I feel like one who dreameth,
As I on these walls- survey
All those objects so familiar,
Year by year and day by day."
Ail in strange and blended splendor,
Like a vision of the night — -
Never yet on earthly fabric
Glowed a scene so rich and bright
Fixed upon the spell-wrought arras
Was the eastern stranger's gaze ;
With his head and heart averted,
There he dreamed of other days :
When, with eyes of watchful terror,
Basil saw his master glide,
And within the golden chalice
Brimming with its purple tide,
With a stealthy, glancing motion,
As a conjuror works his spell,
Cast a drop of ruby liquid
From a tiny rose-lipped shell.
" Hither turn, thou eastern dreamer:
Pledge me in this golden cup ;
'Tis our old and feudal custom —
He who tastes must quaff it up. .
Why that brow of gloom and pallor 1
Answer, why that sudden start 1"
Low the eastern stranger muttered
Of the spells that chilled his heart :
"No ! my eves have not deceived me,
As I fondly dreamed erewhile ;
See the victim's bride descending
From the rajah's funeral pile.
" See, she cometh ! — wildly streaming
Are her robes — her raven hair :
See, she cometh ; darkly gleaming
From her eyes their fell despair !
Now she stands beside the altar,
In the Brainin's sacred shrine ;
Now a jewelled cup she seizes —
Flames within it seem to shine;
Now, O God ! she leaves the arras —
Steps upon the chamber floor :
We are lost — the prey of demons ;
Baron, I will gaze no more !"
Turned away the soul-sick stranger,
Traversed he the chamber high,
When the baron's awful aspect
Chained his step and fixed his eye.
Never from his memory perished
Through long years of after-life
In the camp, the court, the battle,
That remorseful face of strife.
Rooted as a senseless statue,
In his hand the cup of gold ;
Lips apart and eyes distended,
Stood the Norman baron bold !
| High her cup the phantom lifted,
Flames within it seemed to roll ;
Then alone these words she uttered —
" Pledge me in thy feudal bowl !"
Chained and speechless, guest and servant
Saw the baron drain the draught;
Saw him fall convulsed and blackened
As the deadly bowl he quaffed ;
Saw the phantom bending o'er him,
As libation on his head
Slowly, and with mien exulting,
From the cup of flames she shed.
Then a shriek of smothered anguish
Rang the Indian Chamber through
WThile a gust of icy bleakness
From the waving arras blew.
In its breath the watchers shuddered,
And the portals open rung,
And the ample hearth was darkened,
As if ice was on it flung;
And the lofty torches warring
For a moment in the blast,
In their sconces were extinguished,
Leaving darkness o'er the past !
SHE COMES TO ME.
SHE comes to me in robes of snow,
The friend of all my sinless years- -
Even as I saw her long ago,
Before she left this vale of tears.
She comes to me in robes of snow-
She walks the chambers of my rest,
With soundless footsteps, sad and slow,
That wake no echo in my breast.
I see her in my visions yet,
I see her in my waking hours ;
Upon her pale, pure brow is set
A crown of azure hyacinth flowers.
Her golden hair waves round her face,
And o'er her shoulders gently falls :
Each ringlet hath the nameless grace
My spirit yet on earth recalls.
And, bending o'er my lowly bed,
She murmurs — " Oh, fear not to die !•
For thee an angel's tears are shed,
An angel's feast is spread on high.
t; Come, then, and meet the joy divim
That features of the spirits wear •
A fleeting pleasure here is thine—
An angel's crown awaits thee there.
" Listen ! it is a choral hymn" —
And, gliding softly from my couch,
II-T spiru-face waxed faint and dim,
Her white robes vanished at my touch
She leaves me with her robes of snow —
Hushed is the voice that used to thrill
Around the couch of pain and wo —
She leaves me to my darkness still.
340
CATHERINE WARFIELD AND ELEANOR LEE.
I WALK IN DREAMS OF POETRY.
I WALK in dreams of poetry ;
They compass me around ;
1 hear a low and startling voice
In every passing sound ;
I meet in every gleaming star,
On which at eve 1 gaze,
A deep and glorious eye, to fill
My soul with burning rays.
I walk in dreams of poetry ;
'I he very air I breathe
Is filled with visions wild and free,
That round my spirit wreathe ;
A shade, a sigh, a floating cloud,
A low and whispered tone —
These have a language to my brain,
A language deep and lone.
I walk in dreams of poetry,
And in my spirit bow
Unto a lone and distant shrine,
That none around me know.
From every heath and hill I bring
A garland rich and rare,
Of flowery thought and murmuring sigh,
To wreathe mine altar fair.
I walk in dreams of poetry :
Strange spells are on me shed ;
I have a world within my soul
Where no one else may tread —
A deep and wide-spread universe,
Where spirit-sound and sight
Mine inward vision ever greet
With fair and radiant light.
My footsteps tread the earth below,
While soars my soul to heaven :
Small is my portion here — yet there
Bright realms to me are given.
I clasp my kindred's greeting hands,
Walk calmly by their side,
And yet I feel between us stands
A barrier deep and wide.
I watch their deep and household joy
Around the evening hearth,
When the children stand beside each knee
With laugh and shout of mirth.
But oh ! I feel unto my soul
A deeper joy is brought —
To rush, with eagle wings and strong,
Up in a heaven of thought.
I watch them in their sorrowing hours,
When, with their spirits tossed,
I hear them wail with bitter cries
Their earthly prospects crossed;
I feel that I have sorrows wild
In my heart buried deep —
Immortal griefs, that none may shar )
With me — nor eyes can weep.
And strange it is : I can riot say
If it is wo or weal,
Thut thus unto my heart can flow
Fountains so few may feel ;
The gift thai can my spirit raise
The cold, dark earth above,
Has flung a bar between my soul
And many a heart I love.
Yet I walk in dreams of poetry,
And would not change that path,
Though on it from a darkened sky
W7ere poured a tempest's wrath.
Its flowers are mine, its deathless blooms,
I know not yet the thorn ;
I dream not of the evening glooms
In this my radiant morn.
Oh ! still in dreams of poetry
Let me for ever tread,
With earth a temple, where divine,
Bright oracles are shed :
They soften down the earthly ills
From which they can not save ;
They make a romance of our life ;
They glorify the grave.
REGRET.
No voice hath breathed upon mine ear
Thy name since last we met ;
No sound disturbed the silence drear,
Where sleep entombed from year to year
Thy memory, my regret.
It was not just, it was not meet,
Poi one so loved as I,
To coldly hear thy parting feet,
To lose for aye thine accents sweet,
Nor feel a wish to die.
Oh, no ! such heartless calm was not
The doom deserved by thee ;
Thou whose devotedness was bought
By years of gloom, an alien's lot,
.A grave beyond the sea.
I deemed not then that time at last
Should link with tears thy name ;
And from the ashes of the past,
That Sorrow, with its bitter blast,
Should wake the avenging flame.
I deemed not then that when the grave
Had made thee long its own,
My soul with yearnings deep should crave
The truth, the fervent love that gave
Thy heart iis passionate tone.
And yield to olden memories
The boon it once denied,
When, with calm brow and tearless eyes,
I saw thy faded energies,
I mocked thy broken pride.
All this is past ; thou art at rest,
And now the strife is mine :
In turn I bear the weary breast,
The restless heart, the brain oppressed,
That in those years were thine.
And all too late, the consciousness
Of thy perfections rare,
Thy deep, thy fervent tenderness,
Thy true, thy strong devotedness,
Have waked me to despair.
CATHERINE WARFIELD AND ELEANOR LEE.
SONG.
I XEVEK knew how dear thou wert,
Till I was on the silent sea ;
And then my lone and musing heart
Sent hack its passionate thoughts to thee.
When the wind slept on ocean's hreast,
And the moon smiled ahove the deep,
I longed thus o'er thy spirit's rest
A vigil like yon moon to keep.
When the gales rose, and, tempest-tossed,
Our struggling ship was sore heset,
Our topsails rent, our bearing lost,
And fear in every spirit met —
Oh ! then, amid the midnight storm,
Peace on my soul thy memory shed :
The floating image of thy form
Made strong my heart amid its dread.
Yes ! on the dark and troubled sea,
. I strove my spirit's depths to know,
And found its deep, deep love for thee,
Fathomless as the gulfs below.
The waters bore me on my way —
Yet, oh ! more swift than rushing streams,
To thee flew back, from day to day,
My clinging love — my burning dreams.
THE BIRD OF WASHINGTON.
SUGGESTED BY AN INCIDENT IN AUDUBON
ABOVE that dark, romantic stream,
Gray rocks and gloomy forests tower,
And o'er its sullen floods the dream
Of Lethe seems to lower ;
Low, shadowed by its frowning steeps,
The deep and turbid river sweeps.
It sweeps along through many a cleft
And chasm in the mountains gray,
Which in forgotten years were reft
To give its waters way ;
And far above, in martial lines,
Like warriors, stand the plumed pines.
Erect and firm they lift on high
Their pointed tops and funeral spires,
And seem to pierce the sunset sky,
And bask amid its fires ;
Arid when the mountain-winds are loud,
Their branches swell the anthem proud.
Few steps have dared those rugged ways —
The precipice is steep and stern ;
And those who on its ramparts gaze
From the drear aspect turn,
WTith little heart to tempt the path
Bared by the storm and lightning's wrath.
But those who love the awful might
Of Nature's dreariest solitude,
May find on that repulsive height
A scene to match their mood ;
And from its summit look abroad
On the primeval works of God.
There, in that loneliness profound,
The soul puts forth a stronger wing,
And soars, from worldly chains unbound,
A proud, triumphant thing,
To claim its kindred with the sky,
And feel its latent deity.
'T was there that, at the set of sun,
A traveller watched an eagle's flight —
Now lost amid the vapors dun
That ushered in the night,
Now wheeling through the vault of space,
In wild intricacies of grace.
And as declined the crimson gleam
Behind the mountain's purple crest,
He saw him sink, with sudden scream,
Upon his rocky nest;
Then, clambering up the rugged way,
The traveller sought his kingly prey.
Through bush and brake, o'er loosened rock,
That, sliding from his footsteps slow,
Went plunging with a sudden shock
Into the wave below ;
O'er fallen tree, and serpents' brood,
He sought the eagle's solitude.
Emerging from the coppice dark
That crowned the frowning precipice,
He stood in silent awe to mark
The fathomless abvss
Which yawned beneath him deep and stern,
And barred him from the eagle's cairn.
A deer, half maddened by the chase,
Had once in safety leaped across :
Such was the legend of the place —
Yet difficult it was
For those who heard to comprehend
How fear itself such strength could lend.
And thus divided from his prey,
The traveller watched that mountain king,
As, gazing on the dying day,
He sat with folded wing,
And looked the fable of the Greek —
The bird with thunder in his beak.
So calm, so full of quiet might
He seemed upon his craggy throne ;
In his dark eye so much of light,
Of mind, of meaning shone,
That for a moment hand and heart
Refused to do their deadly part.
Exulting creature ! thee no more
The sunlight summoned from thy rest
On wild and warring wing to soar,
With tempest on thy crest;
No more the glorious day's decline
Brought calm repose to heart of thine
Whelmed in the life-stream of thy breast,
Thine eaglets perished in their lair,
And thou, upon thy crag-perched nest,
In impotent despair,
In wild, in sick, in deadly strife,
Didst yield thy glorious mountain Jife ?
Then falling from thine eyry lone.
Where oft with proud, unquailing eyo
Thou didst survey the noonday sun,
342
CATHERINE WARFIELD AND ELEANOR LEE.
To worship or defy ;
Where oil thy voice outshrieked the blast —
The stream received his lord at last.
But. eagle ! no ungenerous foe
Was he who snatched thee from the wave,
And watched thv last, expiring throe
With sighs for one so Grave :
He gave thee, monarch of the river,
A name that bids thee live for ever !
THE DESERTED HOUSE.
ROUND that house, deserted lying,
Wearily the winds are sighing
Evermore with sound undying
Through the empty window-pane ;
As if with its wails distressing
It could call each earthly blessing
From the sods above them pressing,
Back to live and breathe again.
There the cuckoo sits complaining;
All night long her voice is straining,
And the empoisoned oak-vine training,
Hangs its tendrils on the wall.
Once within those chambers dreaming,
Gentle looks of love were gleaming,
Gentle tones with deep love teeming
Did unto each other call.
Far above the roof-tree failing,
See the hoary vulture sailing;
MarketK she the serpent trailing
Underneath the threshold-stone.
Heaven's bright messengers resembling,
Ringdoves here of old were trembling,
As round some fair hand assembling,
They were fed by her alone.
Through the chamber-windows prying,
Softly on the dark floor lying,
See the ghostly moonlight, flying
Through the untrodden gloom.
Seems it not to thee sweet faces,
Shadowy forms of vanished graces,
Stealing, flitting to their places,
In that long-forsaken room 1
Where the darkened stairway windeth,
There her brood the eagle mindeth,
And with chains Arachne bindeth
Balustrade to balustrade.
Once so lightly upward bounding
Fairy steps were heard resounding,
While sweet laughter wild, astounding,
Echoes through the mansion made.
Round the oaken tables spreading,
Through the hall the guests were treading,
Where the festal lamps were shedding
Light upon the ruby wine:
Now swift through the doorway shrunken,
Creeping o'er the threshold sunken,
With the dew and starlight drunken,
Reptile insects seem to twine.
fn the parlor, long forsaken,
Once the lute was wont to waken ;
And with locks all lightly shaken,
Maids and matrons joined in mirth.
Gentle accents here were swelling,
Hallowed voices often telling
Heaven alone was Virtue's dwelling :
All these beings rest in earth.
Mid these garden flowerets pining,
'Neath the starlight dimly shining,
Where the deadly vine is twining,
Once were glorious bowers.
Once were gladsome children playing,
O'er the grass plots lightly straying,
With their golden ringlets swaying
'Neath their crowns of flowers.
By yon gnarled oak's curious twisting,
Here was once a lover's trysting,
Fondly to each other listing,
Wrhile they told their plighting vows.
Often when the lightning streaketh,
And the wind its branches seeketh.
Then that olden oak-tree speaketh,
And sweet voices fill the boughs.
Could we bring again the glory
To this mansion gray and hoary,
Flinging light on every story,
Yet it would be desolate.
Yet (they say) 'tis doomed hereafter;
Forms shall gleam from wall and rafter
Full of silent tears and laughter,
Mingling with a human fate.
Some indeed have said that, creeping,
Nightly from the window peeping,
Lightly from the casement leaping,
They a ghostly maid have seen.
On the broken gate she swingeth,
And her wanlike hands she wringeth,
And with garments white she wingeth
O'er the grassy plain so green.
To the dark oak-tree she cometh,
Round its trunk she wildly roameth,
Shuddering, as the dark stream foametli ;
There she roves till break of day.
Hers they say was love illicit,
Yet from out her murdered spirit
This sad mansion did inherit
A curse never done away !
Therefore, in the balance weighing,
Underneath the rods decaying,
With their white hands clasped as praying.
Sleep the owners of the spot ;
While this home of the departed,
Making sad the lightest-hearted,
Standeth still, a house deserted —
By the world, save me, forgot.
SUSAN PINDAR.
THIS clever young poet was born at Pin
dar's Vale, an estate near Wolfert's Roost,
the seat of Mr. Irving, on the Hudson. Her
fa! her, who had been engaged in commerce,
failing in some important speculations, went
to New Orleans to retrieve his fortunes, and
died there ; and Miss Pindar was soon afier
deprived of all near kindred by the decease
of her brothers. Her poems have been pub
lished chiefly in The Knickerbocker Maga
zine. Some of them are distinguished fora
graceful play of fancy and womanly feeling,
and others for a happy vein of wit and hu
mor. She seems to write with much facil
ity, and the elegance of her compositions
indicates the careful mental discipline, with
out which no degree of genius has yet pnabled
I an. author to win a desirable reputation.
THE SPIRIT MOTHER.
ART thou near me, spirit mother,
When, in the twilight hour,
A holy hush pervades my heart
With a mysterious power :
While eyes of dreamy tenderness
Seem gazing into mine,
And stir the fountains of my soul — •
Sweet mother, are they thine ]
Is thine the blessed influence
That o'er my being flings
A sense of rest, as though 'twere wrapped
Within an angel's wings 1
A deep, abiding trustfulness,
That seems an earnest given
Of future happiness and peace
To those who dwell in heaven !
And ofttimes when my footsteps stray
In error's shining track,
There comes a soft, restraining voice,
That seems to call me back ;
I hear it not with outward ears,
But with a power divine
Its whisper thrills my inmost soul :
Sweet mother, is it thine 1
It well may be, for know we not
That beings all unseen
Are ever hovering o'er our paths,
The earth and sky between 1
They 're with us in our daily walks,
And tireless vigils keep,
To weave those happy fantasies
That bless our hours of sleep !
Oh, could we feel that spirit-eyes
For ever on v?s gaze,
And watch each idle thought that threads
The heart's bewildering maze,
Would we not guard each careless word,
All sinful feelings quell,
Lest we should grieve the cherished ones
We loved on earth so well 1
Sweet spirit mother, bless thy child !
And with a holy love
Inspire my feeble energies,
And lift my heart above ;
And when the long-imprisoned soul
These earthly bonds has riven,
Be thine the wing to bear it up
And waft it on to heaven.
THE LADY LEONORE.
OUT upon the waters foaming,
O'er the deep, dark sea,
A maiden through the twilight gloaming
Gazeth earnestly :
Mighty waves, tempestuous dashing,
Burst upon the shore ;
Recks she not their angry lashing,
Heeds she not the tempest crashing,
Lady Leonore !
She was Beauty's fairest daughter,
Glorious in her pride ;
Noble suitors oft had sought her,
Countless hearts had sighed ;
Vainly the impassioned lover
Burning words did pour :
Bright and cold as stars above her,
Failed all tearful sighs to move her,
Cruel Leonore !
One there was, of noble bearing,
Lowly in his birthi—
Worthy he of all comparing
With the great of earth ;
Dared he own Love's sacred feeling,
The humble troubadour 1
O'er his harp-strings wildly stealing.
Every strain his soul revealing,
Worshipped Leonore.
Loved she him 1 — what soft commotion
Stirred within her breast,
Wakening each fond emotion
With a sweet unrest
34.1
344
SUSAN PINDAR.
Pride all tender ties doth sever —
And they met no more.
Could she wed a minstrel ?— never !
Left he then his home for ever — •
Haughty Leonore !
Now his image sadlv keeping
Shrined within her heart,
Dimmed her eyes with ceaseless weeping
Smiles for aye depart :
Love with fond resistless yearning
Bids her him restore ;
While the beacon-light is burning,
Waiteth she his glad returning,
Tender Leonore !
Wildly now the tempest rushing
On its fearful path,
Every fated object crushing
In its furious wrath.
List ! — that shriek of wo despairing,
Rising mid the roar;
To her heart what anguish bearing,
Where she stands the storm-king daring,
Faithful Leonore !
Soon the early dawn is breaking,
Glorious and serene,
And the sun, in splendor waking,
Smiles upon the scene.
A maiden clasps her lifeless lover
On the wreck-strewn shore:
Moaning surges break above her —
But for her all storms are over,
Hapless Leonore !
BURIAL OF WILLIAM THE CONQJJEROR
WITH slow and solemn tread,
Through aisles where warrior-figures grim
Stand forth in shadowy gloom,
While loudly pea's the funeral hymn,
And censors waft perfume,
Bring they the kingly dead.
They bear him to his rest,
Around whose lofty deeds is cast
The panoply of fame ;
Who gave his war-cry to the blast,
And left a conqueror's mighty name
His nation's proud bequest.
Around his royal bier
The chieftains stand, in reverence bowed,
Amid a hush profound ;
When from the vast assembled crowd
A solemn voice, with warning sound,
Rung on each startled ear.
" Forbear !" it cried, " forbear !
This ground mine heritage I claim ;
Here bloomed our household vine,
Until this dread despoiler came,
And crushed its roots to raise this shrine
Fn mockery of prayer !
" By all your hopes of earth,
As ye before the throne of Heaven
In judgment shall appear,
As ye would pray your sins forgiven,
Lay not the tyrant's ashes here
Upon my father's hearth !"
Mute stood those warriors bold,
Each swarthy cheek grew red with shame,
Tiiat ne'er with fear had paled ;
And for his dust, before whose name
The bravest hearts in terror quailed,
They bought a grave with gold.
Oh, Victory, veil thy brow!
What are thy pageants of an hour —
Thy wreath, when stained with crime 1
Oh, fame, ambition, haughty power !
Ye bubbles on the stream of time,
W7here are your glories now 1
LAURALIE.
LIGHTEN than the sunbeam's ray,
Dawning on the sea,
Graceful as a moonlight fay,
WTas she who won all hearts away —
Lauralie !
Tresses bright of golden hair,
Flowing wild and free,
Down her cheek beyond compare,
Nestling in her bosom fair —
Lauralie !
By the heaven within her eyes,
Plainly might you see,
She had stolen their glorious dyes
From the laughing summer skies —
Lauralie !
Less beautiful than good and kind,
Pure as snow was she ;
All gentle thoughts dwelt in her mind,
By innocence and truth refined —
Lauralie !
A tall knight came, with bearing bold,
And tender vows breathed he ;
Alas ! a tale too often told,
He won her heart, his love waned cold
Lauralie !
He brought a fair and haughty bride
From o'er the sea ;
And as he feasted at her side,
A maiden sought his feet and died —
Lauralie !
Now doth the broken-hearted sleep
Beneath the linden tree ;
Above the sod the wild vines creep,
And maidens seek the spot to weep :
Lauralie !
But he — the false one ! — knows not rest,
Dishonored now is he ;
His faithless bride has left his breast :
Oh, well are all thy wrongs redressed,
Lauralie !
A maniac wild, he smiles no more,
But wanders by the sea,
And mutters, mid the tempest's roar,
The name he traces on the shore
Lauralie !
SUSAN PINDAR.
345
GREENWOOD.
THERE is a spot far in the green still wood,
Where Nature reigns in majesty alone,
Where the tall trees for countless years have stood,
And flowers have bloomed and faded all unknown;
Where fearless birds soar through the morning skies,
And fill the air with varied melodies,
While o'er the water's breast dark shadows brood,
Flung by the clustering boughs, a glorious solitude !
It is a holy place, so cairn and still,
So wrapped in shades of peaceful quietude :
A sense of awe the inmost soul doth thrill,
And tunes the spirit to a higher mood,
When in the precincts of that sacred spot
The busy cares of life are all forgot.
Let not a foot-fall, with irreverent sound,
Startle the echoes of the hallowed ground.
The dead are with us, where green branches wave,
And where the pine boughs cast a deeper gloom ;
Yonder a rose-tree marks an early grave,
And there proud manhood sleeps beneath the tomb ;
The young high heart with vague, bright dreamings
Too pure for earth, yet haply now fulfilled, [filled,
Lies mute, perchance by his who knew not rest,
Until the damp sod pressed his aching breast.
And doth it not seem meet,
That there earth's weary pilgrims should repose,
Far from the hurrying tread of eager feet,
WThere the last sunbeams at the daylight's close
Quiver like golden harpstrings mid the trees,
While with a spirit's touch the evening breeze
Wakens a requiem for the sleepers there,
And Nature's every breath seems fraught with
prayer !
And when the twilight, in her robe of gray,
Flings o'er the earth a veil of mystic light,
While as the glow of even melts away,
Thie stars above grow more intensely bright,
Even as the promise that our God has given,
As fade our hopes on earth, so grow they bright in
heaven :
Might we not deem them holy spirit-eyes,
Their vigils keeping in the silent skies 1
Oh, noiseless city of the mighty dead !
Lonely and mute, yet are thy annals fraught
With solemn teachings, and thy broad page spread
WTith the rich lore of soul-awakening thought ;
And when the wanderer on the future shores
Shall seek its hidden mysteries to explore.
Thy hallowed shades, with spirit-voices rife,
May lead him onward to the gates of life.
THOUGHTS IN SPRING-TIME.
FAR in some still, sequestered nook,
Removed from worldly strife,
How calmly, like a placid brook,
Would glide the stream of life !
How sweet in temples God has made
To raise the voice of prayer,
While songsters from the leafy glade
With music fill the air !
Does not the spirit seem to spurn
The fettered thoughts of earth,
And with a holier impulse turn
To things of higher birth ]
When in the forests' vast arcade,
Where man has seldom trod,
Amid the works that he has made,
We stand alone with God 1
When gazing on fair Nature's face,
Untouched by hand of art,
In every leaf his love we trace,
What feelings thrill the heart !
The diamond dew-drop on the spray,
Each early-fading flower,
The glittering insects of a day —
All show God's wondrous power :
And teach us by their helplessness
Of his unwearied care,
Who gives the lily's vestal dress,
And bids us not despair.
When in the fading light of day
The forest trees grow dim,
And evening comes in sober gray,
How turn our souls to him !
There is no sound upon the air,
All living things are still —
A solemn hush as if of prayer,
Is brooding o'er the hill :
While far above, like spirit-eyes,
The stars their vigils keep,
And smile on the fair stream that lies
Upon earth's breast, asleep.
There is a spell that binds the heart
At this most hallowed hour,
And bids all earth-born thoughts depart
Beneath its holy power.
And when to all created things
A voice of praise is given,
The spirit 'seems on angel wings
To soar aloft to Heaven.
CAROLINE MAY.
Miss CAROLINE MAY, a daughter of the
Rev. Edward Harrison May, minister of one
of the Reformed Dutch churches in the city
of New York, is the author of many very
graceful and striking poems ; and during
the present year she has published, in Phila
delphia, a volume entitled Specimens of the
America;] Female Poets. Miss May hasgiven
few of her compositions to the public, and the
following, except one, are now first printed,
THE SABBATH OF THE YEAR
IT is the sabbath of the year ;
And if ye '11 walk abroad,
A holy sermon ye shall hear,
Full worthy of record.
Autumn the preacher is ; and look — •
As other preachers do,
He takes a text from the one Great Book,
A text both sad and true.
With a deep, earnest voice, he saith — •
A voice of gentle grief,
Fitting the minister of Death —
"Ye all fade as a leaf;
And your iniquities, like the wind,
Have taken you away ;
Ye fading flutterers, weak and blind,
Repent, return, and pray."
And then the Wind ariseth slow,
And giveth out a psalm —
And the organ-pipes begin to blow,
Within the forest calm ;
Then all the Trees lift up their hands,
And lift their voices higher,
And sing the notes of spirit bands
In full and glorious choir.
Yes! 'tis the sabbath of the year!
And it doth surely seem,
(But words of reverence and fear
Should speak of such a theme,)
That the corn is gathered for the bread,
And the berries for the wine,
And a sacramental feast is spread,
Like the Christian's pardon sign.
And the Year, with sighs of penitence,
The holy feast bends o'er ;
For she must die, and go out hence
Die, and bo scon no more.
Then are the choir and organ still,
The psalm melts in the air,
The Wind bows down beside the hill,
And all are hushed in prayer.
Then comes the Sunset in the west,
Like a patriarch of old,
Or like a saint who hath won his rest,
His robes, and his crown of gold ;
And forth his arms he stretch eth wide;
And with solemn tone and clear
He blesseth, in the eventide,
The sabbath of the Year.
TO A STUDENT.
GIVE thyself to the beauty
Of this September day !
And let it be thy duty
To treasure every ray
Of the sweet light that streams abroad,
An emblem of its Maker, God !
Oh ! put away the learning
Of science and of art;
And stifle not the yearning
That swells within thy heart,
To look upon, and love, and bless,
Departing Summer's loveliness !
Go out into the garden,
And taste the sweetness there —
(Thy books will surely pardon
A pause from studious care) —
Of the still lavish mignonette,
And the few flowers that linger yet.
Go, feel the sweet caressing
Of the south wind on thy cheek —
Kind as the breathed-out blessing
Of one too sad to speak ;
And mournful in its music low
As the dim thoughts of long ago.
Lift up thy face in gladness
To the sky so soft and warm,
And watch the frolic madness
Of the changeful clouds, that form
A mimic shape, in every change,
Of something beautiful and strange.
Or go, if thou wouldst rather,
To the distant woods, and see
How surely thou wilt gather
From forest harmony
Sweet themes for present songs of praise,
And hoards of thought for future lays.
Oh ! it will make thee better,
More wise, and glad, and kind,
To throw off every fetter,
And go with pliant mind —
Like a free, open-hearted child,
To wander in the forests wild.
The love of Nature heightens
Our love to God and man;
And a spirit, Love enlightens,
Farther than others can,
Pierces with clear and steady eyes
Into the land where true thought lies '
346
CAROLINE MAY.
34?
SONNETS.
T. OX A WARM NOVEMBER. PAY.
ts this November ] It must surely be
That some sweet May day, like a merry girl
With eye of laughing blue, and golden curl,
In the excess of her light-hearted glee,
Has run too far from home, and lost her way ;
And now she trembles, while upon the air
Flutter the rainbow ribands of her hair,
And her warm breath comes quick, for fear her play
Should into danger her wild footsteps bring !
She sees herself upon the barren heath
Where, happily, November slumbereth:
What, should he wake, and find her trespassing !
Yet, weep not, wanderer ! for I know ere night
Thou wilt be home again laughing with safe delight.
II. OX THE APPROACH OF W1XTER.
Now comes the herald of stern Winter. Hear
The blast of his loud trumpet through the air,
Bidding collected families prepare
For the fierce king, without delay or fear ;
Not seacoal fires alone, or cordial cheer
Of generous wine, or raiment thick and warm,
Though these may make the bleak and boisterous
A picture for the eye, and music for the ear ; [storm
But laws of kindness, simple and sincere,
Patient forbearance, and sweet cheerfulness,
And gentle charity that loves to bless —
To hide all faults as soon as they appear.
Without such stores, bought by no golden price,
Winter may freeze the human blood to ice !
III. THOUGHT.
So truly, faithfully, my heart is thine,
Dear Thought, that when I am debarred from thee
By the vain tumult of vain company ; '
And when it seems to be the fixed design
Of heedless hearts, who never can incline
Themselves to seek thy rich though hidden charms,
To keep me daily from thy outstretched arms —
My soul sinks faint within me, and I pine
As lover pines when from his love apart,
Who, after having been long loved, long sought,
At length has given to his persuasive art
Her generous soul with hope and fear full fraught :
For thou 'rt the honored mistress of my heart,
Pure, quiet, bountiful, beloved Thought!
IV. HOPE.
LIKE the glad skylark, who each early morn
Springs from his shady nest of weeds or flowers,
And whether stormy clouds, or bright, are born,
Pierces the realm of sunshine and of showers ;
And with untiring wing and steady eye,
And never ceasing song, (so loud and sweet,
So full of trusting love, that it is meet
It should be poured forth at heaven's portals high,)
Bears up his sacrifice of gratitude :
So Hope — the one, the only Hope — spreads out
Her wings from the heart's tearful solitude,
(Shadowed too oft with weeds,) quivers about
The cloudy caves of earth, till sudden strength is
given
To dart above them all, and soar with songs to
heaven.
V. MEMORY.
LIKE the full-hearted nightingale,
Who careth not to sing her sad, sweet strain
To open Daylight ; but when pale
And thoughtful Evening sheds o'er plain,
And hill, and va'e, a quiet sense
Of loneliness unbroken, then she gives
Her soul to the deep influence
Of silence and of shade, and lives
A life of mournful melody
In one short night : so Memory,
Shrinking from daylight's glare and noise,
Reserves her melancholy joys
For the dark stillness of the holy night,
And then she pours them forth till dawning light
LILIES.
EVERT flower is sweet to me —
The rose and violet,
The pink, the daisy, and sweet pea,
Heart's-ease and mignonette,
And hyacinths and daffodillies:
But sweetest are the spotless lilies.
I know not what the lilies were
That grew in ancient times — •
When Jesus walked with children fair,
Through groves of eastern climes,
And made each flower, as he passed by it,
A type of faith, content, and quiet.
But they were not. more pure and bright
Than those our gardens show ;
Or those that shed their silver light,
Where the dark waters flow ;
Or those that hide in woodland alley,
The fragrant lilies of the valley.
And I, in each of them, would see
Some lesson for my youth :
The loveliness of purity,
The stateliness of truth,
Whene'er I look upon the lustre
Of those that in the garden cluster.
Patience and hope, that keep the sou.
Unruffled and secure,
Though floods of grief beneath it roll,
I learn, when calm and pure
I see the floating water-lily,
Gleam amid shadows dark and chilly
And when the fragrance that ascend*
Shows where its lovely face
The lily of the valley bends,
I think of that sweet grace,
Which sheds within the spirit lowlv.
A rest, like heaven's, so safe and hob
:M8
CAROLINE MAY.
TO NATURE.
ROCKS, and woods, and water,
1 am now with ye !
What a grateful daughter
Ought I not to be !
Alone with Nature — oh, what bliss,
What a privilege is this !
Give me now a blessing,
Help my tongue to speak
The feelings that are pressing
Till my heart grows weak —
Faint with the strange influence
Of this wild magnificence.
I shut my eyes a minute,
Listening to the sound :
Music is there in it,
Stirring and profound !
Wrild-voiced waters, babbling breeze,
Telling tales of aged trees :
And the echoes — hearken !
There they chiefly dwell,
Where those huge rocks darken
That green woody dell :
Hearken with what joy they spring,
W hen the village church bells ring !
Up I look, and follow
With my eyes the sound,
Fading in the hollow
Of the hills around ;
Then I clasp my hands and sigh,
That so soon the echoes die.
And I think how fleetly
Pleasures that we prize,
Like the echoes, sweetly
Fade before our eyes :
But 'tis well, 'tis well for me,
Prone to earth idolatry.
Oh ! ye kingly mountains,
With your cedar woods;
Closing diamond fountains
In their solitudes :
In my very soul ye dwell —
Can I love ye then too well 1
Oh ! ye clouds of glory,
That your crimson throw
On the old rocks hoary,
While the stream below
Sleeps in an unbroken shade:
Can too much of ye be made ?
Can I love to 1'tiger
In this quiet nook,
Tracing .Nature's linger
Heading .Nature's hook.
Til! such liiurrinir- !>,• wrong
Ivfuliug, tracing there too long?
If *o, 't .is no pity ;
For too soon, alas !
To the imprisoning city
From these haunts I pass,
And this quiet nook will be
Seen alone in memory.
Rocks, and woods, and water,
Now I am with ye,
And a grateful daughter
Ever will I be —
Loving ye, e'en when ye are
From my loving heart afar.
THE SUN.
WHEN the bounteous summer-time
Threw the riches of its prime,
Corn arid grass, and fruit and flowers
Upon meadows, fields, and bowers;
When the teeming earth below
Seemed to quiver in the glow
Of the sky, intensely bright
Writh luxuriant, melting light -
Then we ever tried to shun
The advances of the sun :
Flying from his burning glance,
If he looked at us by chance ;
Shutting out his beams, if they
Ever boldly dared to stray
To our dark and fragrant room.
Rendered cool by quiet gloom.
Now the summer time is gone,
And the winds begin to mourn ;
Now the yellow leaves fall down,
And the grass is turning brown,
And the flowers are dying fast ;
Now the chill, destroying blast,
Seems to whisper in the vine
A sad warning of decline —
We invoke the sun's warm ray,
And we bless it all the day ;
Looking up, as to a friend,
When its beams on us descend ;
And we watch it down the west,
As it early sinks to rest:
Then, with sorrow at our hearts,
Sigh, " How soon the sun departs !"
So, in brightest summer tide
Of prosperity and pride,
When our friends are kind and warm,
And we dream not of the storm —
Then we hide in our recess
From the Sun of Righteousness,
Closing up our soul and sight
To his strong and piercing light.
But when the autumn blast
Of desertion sweepeth past,
Then we cry — by grief made bold —
" We are deso'ate and co'd !
Let thy beams descend, and heal
The sou'-smartin r wounds we feel;
Shine upon us, Christ our Sun —
Without taee we are undone !r'
ALICE G. HAYEK
(Born 1828— Died 1863).
Miss EMILY BRADLEY, a native of the city
of Hudson, in New York, was married in 1846
to the late Joseph C. Neal, of Philadelphia,
an author and a man who will be regretted
while any of his acquaintances are living.
She was educated at a boarding-school in
New Hampshire, and was known as a wri
ter by many spirited compositions, chiefly it
prose, published under the signature of " Al
ice G. Lee." After the death of Mr. Neal,
in the summer of 1847, Mrs. Neal contin
ued, in Philadelphia, with much tact and
ability, the popular journal of which he was
the editor, called Neal's Saturday Evening
Gazette. She afterwards married Mr. Sam
uel L. Haven, of New York, and wrote a
number of children's books under the nom
de plume of " Cousin Alice,"
THE BRIDE'S CONFESSION.
A SUDDEN- thrill passed through my heart,
Wild and intense — yet not of pain — •
I strove to quell quick-bounding throbs,
And scanned the sentence o'er again.
It might have been full idly penned
By one whose thoughts from love were free
And yet, as if entranced. I read —
" Thou art most beautiful to me."
Thou didst not whisper I was loved;
There were no gleams of tenderness,
Save those my trembling heart would hope
That careless sentence might express.
But while the blinding tears fell fast,
Until the words I scarce could see,
There shone, as through a wreathing mist—
" Thou art most beautiful to me."
To thee 1 — I cared not for all eyes,
So I was beautiful in thine !
A timid star, my faint, sad beams
Upon thy path alone should shine.
Oh, what was praise, save from thy lips 1
And love should all unheeded be,
So T cou'd hear thy bless -M! voice
Say, " Thou art beautiful to me."
And I have heard those very words —
Blushing beneath thine earnest gaze— •
Though thou perchance hadst qtuite forgot
They had been said in bygone days:
While clasped hand and circling arm
Then drew me nearer still to thee,
Thy low voice breathed upon mine ear- -
" Thou, love, art beautiful to me."
And, dearest, though thine eyes alone
May see in me a single grace,
I care not, so thou e'er canst find
A hidden sweetness in my face.
And if, as years and cares steal on,
Even that lingering light must flee,
What matter, if from thee I hear —
" Thou art still beautiful to me !"
MIDNIGHT AND DAYBREAK.
I HAD been tossing through the restless night,
Sleep banished from my pillow, and my brain
Weary with sense of dull and stifling pain,
Yearning and praying for the blessed light.
My lips moaned thy dear name, beloved one!
Yet I have seen thee lying stiff and cold,
Thy form bound only by the shroud's pure fold,
For life with all its suffering was done.
Then agony of loneliness o'ercame
My widowed heart ; night would fit emblem seem
For the evanishing of that bright dream :
The heavens were dark, my life henceforth the same:
No hope — its pulse within my breast was dead.
Once more I sought the casement. JLo ! a ray,
Faint and uncertain, struggled through the gloom,
And shed a misty twilight on the room ;
Long watched-for herald of the coming day !
It brought a thrill of gladness to my breast.
With clasped hands and streaming eyes I prayed,
Thanking my God for light, though long delayed ;
And gentle calm stole o'er my wild unrest.
" Oh soul !" I said, " thy boding murmurs cease ;
Though sorrow bind thee as a funeral pall,
Thy Father's hand is guiding thee through all ;
His love will bring a true and perfect peace.
Look upward once again : though drear the night,
Earth may be darkness, Heav'n will give thee light."
THE CHURCH.
CLAD in a robe of pure and spotless white,
The youthful bride with timid step comes forth
To greet the hand to which she plights her troth,
Her soft eyes radiant with a strange delight.
The snowy veil which circles her around
Shades the sweet face from every gazer's eye,
And thus enwrapped, she passes calmly by —
Nor casts a look but on the unconscious ground
So should the Church, the bride elect of Heaven-
Remembering Whom she goeth forth fo meet
349
350
ALICE G. HAVEN.
And with a truth that can not brook deceit
Holding the faith which unto her is given —
Pass through this world.which claims her for awhile,
\or cast about her longing look, nor smile.
BLIND!
;i moment she was blind for life."
BLIND, said you"? Blind for life!
'Tis but a jest — no, no, it can not be
That I no more the b ess.'d light may see !
Ob, what a fearful strife
Of horrid thought is raging in my mind !
I did not hear aright — " For ever blind !"
Mother, you would not speak
Auii'ht but the truth to me, your stricken child:
Tell me I do but dream ; my brain is wild,
And yet my heart is weak.
Oh, mother ! fold me in a close embrace —
Bend down to me that dear, that gentle face.
I can not hear your voice !
Speak louder, mother. Speak to me, and say
Tins frightful dream will quickly pass away.
Have I no hope, no choice 1
0 Heaven ! with light has sound, too, from me fled 1
Call, shout aloud, as if to wake the dead !
Thank God ! I hear you now :
1 hear the beating of your troubled heart ;
With every wo of mine it has a part.
Upon my upturned brow
The hot tears fall from those dear eyes for me :
Once more, oh is it true I may not see 7
This silence chills my blood.
Had you one word of comfort, all my fears
Were quickly banished : faster still the tears,
A bitter, burning flood,
Fall on my face, and now one trembling word
Confirms the dreadful truth my cars have heard !
Why weep you 1 — I am calm :
My wan .ip quivers not — my heart is still.
My swollen temples — see, they do not thrill !
That word was as a charm ;
Tell me the worst: all, all I now can bear;
I have a fearful strength — that of despair.
What is it to be blind 1 —
To be shut out for ever from the skies —
To see no more the " light of loving eyes" —
And, as years pass, to find
My lot unvaried by one passing gleam
Of the bright woodland or the flashing stream 1
To feel the breath of Spring,
Yet not to view one of the tiny flowers
That come from out the earth with her soft showers ;
To hear the bright birds sing,
And feel, while listening to their joyous .train,
My heart can ne'er know happiness aga'.n !
Then in the solemn night
To lie alone, while all anear me sleep,
A.ml laney fearful forms about me creei; :
Starting in wild ajfri-ht.
To know, if true, T could not have the power
I To ward off danger in that lonely hour.
And as my breath came thick
To feel the hidoous darkness round me press,
Adding new terror to my loneliness;
While every pulse leaped quick
To clutch and grasp at the black, stifling air —
Then sink in stupor from my wild despair.
It comes upon me now !
I can not breathe ; my heart grows quick and chill ;
Oh, mother, are your arms about me still —
Still o'er me do you bow?
And yet I care not : better all alone —
No one to heed my weakness should I moan.
Again ! I will not live.
Death is no worse than this eternal night —
Those resting in the grave heed not the light !
Small comfort can ye give.
Yes, Death is welcome as my only friend ;
In the calm grave my sorrows will have end.
Talk not to me of hope !
Have you not told me it is all in vain —
That while I live I may not see again 7
That earth, and the broad scope
Of the blue heaven — that all things glad and free
Henceforth are hidden — tell of hope to me ]
It is not hard to lie
Calmly and silently in that long sleep ;
No fear can wake me from that slumber deep.
So, mother, let me die :
I shall be happier in the gentle rest
Than living with this grief to fill my breast.
" God tempers tlie wind to the shorn lamb." — Sterne.
THANK. God that yet I live !
In tender mercy, heeding not the prayer
I boldly uttered in my first despair,
He would not rashly give
The punishment an erring spirit braved.
From sudden death in kindness I was saved.
It was a fearful thought
That this fair earth had not one p'easure left!
I was at once of sight and hope bereft.
My soul was not yet taught
To bow submissive to the sudden stroke ;
Its crushing weight my heart had well-nigh broke.
W'ords are not that can tell
The horrid thought that burned upon my brain,
That came and went with madness still the same —
A black and icy spell
Thatfroze my life-blood. stopp'd my flutteringbreath,
Was laid upon me — even " life in death."
Long, weary months crept by,
And I refused all comfort; turned aside,
Wishing that in my weakness I had died.
I uttered no reply,
But without ceasing wept and moaned, and prayed
The hand of Death no longer might be stayed.
I shunned the gaze of all:
I knew that pity dwelt in every look ;
Pity e'en then my proud heart could not brook ;
ALICE G. HAVEN.
351
Though darkness as a pall
Circled me round, each mournful eye 1 felt
That for a moment on my features dwelt.
You, dearest mother, know
I shrank in sullenness from your caress;
Even your kisses added to distress,
For burning tears would flow
As you bent o'er me, whispering, " Be calm,
He who hath wounded holds for thee a balm."
He did not seern a friend :
I deemed in wrath the sudden blow was sent
From a strong arm that never might relent;
That pain alone would end
With life — for, mother, then it seem to me
That long arid dreamless would death's slumber be.
That blessed illness came :
My weakened pulse now bounded wild and strong.
While soon a raging fever burned along
My worn, exhausted frame ;
And for the time all knowledge passed away —
It mattered not that hidden was the day.
The odor of sweet flowers
Came stealing through the casement when I wok;,
When the wild fever-spell at last was broke ;
And yet for many hours
I laid in dreamy stillness, till your tone
Called back the life that seemed for ever flown,
You, mother, knelt in prayer ;
While one dear hand was resting on my heac1,
With sobbing voice, how fervently you plead
For a strong heart, to bear
The parting which you feared — " Or, if she live,
Comfort, O Father, to the stricken give !
" Take from her wandering mind
The heavy load which it so long hath borne,
Which even unto death her frame hath worn :
Let her in mercy find,
That though the earth she may no longer see,
Her spirit still can look to Heaven and thee."
A low sob from me stole :
A moment more, your arms about me wound,
My head upon your breast a pillow found ;
And through my weary soul
A holy calm came stealing from on high :
Your prayer was answered — I was not to die.
Then when the bell's faint chime
Came floating gently on the burdened air,
My heart went up to God in fervent prayer.
And, mother, from that time
My wild thoughts left rne, hope returned once more :
I felt that happiness was yet in store.
Daily new strength was given :
For the first time since darkness on me fell,
I passed with more of joy than words can tell
Under the free, blue heaven ;
I bathed my brow in the cool, gushing spring : '
How much of life those bright drop seemed to bring !
I crushed the dewy leaves
Of the pale violets, and drank their breath —
Though I had heard that at each floweret's deatft
A sister blossom grieves.
I did not care to see their glorious hues,
Fearing the richer perfume I might lose.
Then in the dim old wood
I laid me down beneath i bending tree,
And dreamed, dear mother, waking dreams of Ihe'j
I thought how just and good
The Power that had so gently sealed mine eyes,
Yet bade new pleasures and new hopes arise.
For now in truth I find
My Father all his promises hath kept :
He comforts those who here in sadness wept.
" Eyes to the blind"
Thou art, O God ! Earth I no longer see,
Yet trustfully my spirit looks to thee.
A MEMORY.
SLOWLY fades the misty twilight
O'er the thronged and noisy town ;
Storms are gathered in the distance,
And the clouds above it frown.
Yet before me leaves sway lightly
In the hushed and drowsy air,
And the trees new-cloth ed in verdure
Have no summer of despair.
I have gazed into the darkness,
Seeking in the busy crowd
For a form once passing onward
With a step as firm and proud ;
For a face upturned in gladness
To the window where I leaned,
Smiling with an eager welcome,
Though a step but intervened.
Even now my cheek is flushing
With the rapture of that gaze,
And my heart as then beats wildly.
Oh, the memory of those days
As a dear, dear dream it cometh,
Swiftly as a dream it flies !
No one springeth now unto me,
Smiling wim such earnest eyes —
No one hastens home at twilight,
Watching for my hand to wave :
For the form I seek so vainly
Sleepeth in the silent grave ;
And the eyes have smiled in dying
Blessing rne with latest, life —
Oh, my friend ! above the discord
Of the last, wild, earthlv strife.
CAROLINE H. CHANDLER.
THE maiden name of this fine writer was
HIESKILL. She was married several years
ago to Mr. M. T. W. Chandler, a son of the
Hon. Joseph R. Chandler, of Philadelphia,
which is her native city. Her poems have
appeared from time to time in the United
States Gazette, and in the Philadelphia mag
azines.
TO MY BROTHER.
" Tlie love where Death hath =et his seal,
Nor age can dull, nor rival steal.
Nor falsehood disavow."— Byron.
WELCOME, 0 brother, to our household meeting,
Welcome again from o'er the distant sea ;
Long have we looked for thy familiar greeting.
Long have we yearned to gaze once more on thee.
Daily and nightly for thy safe returning
Have prayers ascended from our watchful hearts,
When, as before a shrine, for ever burning,
The lamp of love its holy light imparts.
How have we missed thee in our joy and sorrow !
How have we daily marked thy vacant place !
How have we fondly sighed for the fair morrow,
That should restore to us thine own dear face !
The chain of love hath lost a link without thee —
And all too slowly runs the golden sand
Till that sweet time when, circled round about thee,
Safe in our midst, we may behold thee stand.
Yet with our welcome mingle strains of sadness
Unheard before amidst our household mirth ;
Hushed are the wonted tones of joy and gladness,
For ever quenched the light upon our hearth.
The star is hidden from our earnest gazing,
Silent the music in the troubled air,
Yet do we surely know, to heaven upraising
Our eyes all dim with tears, that she is there.
The Father hath received her into glory —
The lamb hath refuge found within the fold;
And though her life be as an untold story,
Her death is writ in characters of gold.
Oh! litt'e darling, with the tears fast raining,
And the sick heart a mother only knows —
I think of thy most patient uncomplaining,
Submissive ever, till thy sweet life's close;
Of all the wealth of thy young heart's devotion —
Of the last mortal sickness, faint unrest —
And oh, dread thought, the little hand's last motion,
Which even in death would c'asp me to thy breast !
Each censure passed in chastening correction
Upon thy childish faults, so few and light —
Each look, each hasty word, with vain reflection,
Comes pressing hard upon my heart to-night.
Once more, my solitary vigil keeping,
I watch beside thee in that silent room ;
Counting thy pulse, as the hot blood runs leaping
Through those young veins, soon quiet in the tomb.
Once more I mark the dimpled cheek's deep flushing,
Seen by the dim night-lamp ; once more thy cry
Of mortal pain sends with a mighty rushing
The awful thought that thou must surely die !
These are most dread and fearful recollections,
Ne'er to be blotted out till life hath fled ;
Yet are there holy, comforting reflections,
Which bloom like flowers around the early dead.
Oh ! to believe, with meekness uncomplaining,
In the dear mercy of God's loving sway —
That our sore loss is her eternal gaining —
That darkness leadeth but to perfect day.
Ye find us not the same as when we parted,
Oh, brother mine ! but weary and way-worn —
Ye find us not the same as when we started
On the dark road of life, in youth's fair morn.
Then, with a holy and a meek confiding,
And a fond trust, too lovely to endure,
We dreamed not of the evil here abiding,
For to the heart of youth all things are pure.
The world no longer wears the same gay seeming
That shone around it once in life's first years,
And we have learned to mock its idle dreamings,
And bathe its brightest hopes with bitter tears.
Oh ! dreary is that first most sad awaking
From the sweet confidence of early truth,
To find Hope's rosy glass, in fragments breaking,
Reflects no more the visions of our youth !
Ah ! many hearts have changed since we two parted,
And many grown apart, as time hath sped —
Till we have almost deemed that the true-hearted
Abided only with the faithful dead.
And some we trusted with a fond believing,
Have turned and stung us to the bosom's core ;
And life hath seemed but as a vain deceiving,
From which we turn aside, heartsick and sore.
Oh, brother ! this is but a mournful greeting
With which to hail the wanderer's return ;
My lay, responsive to my heart's sad beating,
Tells but of death — the ashes and the uin.
Yet must we wait, God's own good time abiding.
And faithful labor at the task below —
Till his just hand, the good and ill dividing,
Shall change to future jov our present wo.
352'
ELIZA L. SPROAT.
Miss SPROAT is a native arid a resident of
Philadelphia. She is the author of many
fanciful and brilliant poems, of which a few
have recently been printed in literary miscel
lanies. She has wit, delicacy, and a pleas
ing vein of sentiment.
THE PRISONER'S CHILD.
THE dull, chill prison building,
Oh, what a gloomy sight !
It wears in boldest morning
The coward scowl of Night.
The warm, fresh Light approaches,
And shuddering turns away :
Within its shadow looming foul
No joysome thing will stay.
Yet there's a light within my cell,
A lovely light its walls enclose ;
My happy child — my daughter pure —
My wild, wild rose.
The prison sounds are dreary
To one who hears them long ;
The murderer talking to himself—
The drunkard's crazy song.
My prison-door grates harshly,
It bodes the jailer's scowl ;
The jailer's dog sleeps all the day,
To wake at night and howl.
Yet there is music in my cell,
And Joy's own voice its walls enclose ;
My heaven-bird — my gladsome girl —
My wild, wild rose.
Her mellow, golden accents
O'erflow the air around,
As if the joyous sunshine
Resolved itself to sound.
She carols clear at morning,
And prattles sweet at noon ;
She sings to rest the weary sun,
And ringeth up the moon ;
And when in sleep she visits home,
(My daughter knows the angels well,)
She Ml fearless rouse the awful night,
Her happy dreams to tell.
Oh, some have many treasures,
But other I have none ;
The dear Creator gave me
My blessings all in one.
The wealth of many jewels
Is garnered in her eyes ;
The worth of many loving hearts
Within her bosom lies ;
She's more to me than daily bread,
And more to me than night's repose :
My staff, my flower, my praise, my prayer —
My wild, wild rose.
2
A FEW STRAY SUNBEAMS.
LITTLE dainty Sunbeams!
Listen when you please,
You Ml not hear their tiny feet
Dancing in the trees :
All so light and delicate
Is their golden tread,
Not a single flower-leaf
Such a step may dread.
Merry, laughing Sunbeams,
Playing here and there,
Passing through the rose-leaves,
Flashing everywhere ;
Through the cottage window,
In the cottage door,
Past the green, entangled vines,
On the cottage floor.
Lovely little Sunbeams,
Laughing as they played
Through the flying ringlets
Of the cottage maid ;
Staying but to flush her cheek,
Darting in their glee
Down the darkened forest-path,
O'er the open lea,
Through the castle window
Where, in curtained gloom,
Sat its lovely mistress
In her splendid bloom !
Oh ye saucy Sunbeams !
Could ye dare to spy
Time's annoying footmarks
Near a lady's eye 1
Dare ye flash around her,
Every line to see,
Lighting each stray wrinkle up
In your cruel glee 1
See ! the witching Sunbeams
With the wand they hold,
Turn the earth to emerald,
And the skies to gold ;
All the streams are silver
'Neath their magic rare ,
All the black .ears Night hath shed,
Gems for kings to wear.
Beautiful is moonlight,
Like to Nature's mind,
353
35 1
II \IIR1ET LISZT.
Purely white and bril iant,
Coldly, cfhnly kind :
Beautiful thy burning stars,
Like to Nature's soul,
Rapturous that ever gaze,
Heavenward as they roll.
But oh ! the human sunlight,
Flooding earth in glee,
Nature's living, laughing, loving,
Gladsome heart for me !
QUO N ARE.
WHEHKTO shall I liken thee,
Holy Guonare ?
TV the waves that leap so free,
Or the flowers that smile so fair? —
Fearless as the bounding wave,
Meek as any little flower,
God to woman never gave
More of love with more of power.
Thou art not a violet,
Feeble, shrinking, sweet, and frail ;
Wrongful scorn could never yet
Cause thy heart to quail.
Thou art not a sunbright rose,
Tossing bold her lovely form
With each breeze that comes and goes —
Laughing, gaudy, flushed, and warm.
Thou art like a lily, standing
Near the rose's gaudy form :
Like a pure, cool lily, bending
Near the rose all flushed and warm.
Thou art like a great, bright star,
Shining clearly, calmly forth,
Through some chasm in a cloud
Darkly shrouding all the earth.
Thou art like a rainbow fair,
Gleaning brightness still from sorrow,
Turning tears to hope-gems rare,
Showing still a glad to-rnorrow.
Thou hast looked upon the stars
Till thine eyes are darkly bright,
Beaming forth in broadest day
Strange and holy light.
Thou art all a mystery,
Wondrous Guonare !
I cou'd almost fancy thee
(Looking on thine eys so rare)
Some mistaken spirit, landing
On this shore of care and cark —
One of God's white angels, standing
In a world of dark. *
Maiden, dost thou never blush ?
Woman, dost thou never weep ]
Hold sad talks with Night and Care,
While God's happy sleep?
Dost thou never teach thy brow
A wreath of glowing smiles to wear.
To hide the crown of thorns below,
Calm-eyed Guonare 1
Passion hath no charm
To lure thy heavenward eye ;
Care and Sin but look on thee,
And pass in wonder by.
Thou hast surely brought to earth
Charms to keep thee passion-free — •
Memories of thy heaven-birth
And thine immortality.
Or, mayhap the angels fair,
Sporting in their raptured glee,
When thy soul to earth was lent,
Then forgot to proffer thee
Drink from that dim, awful river,
Alway since to mortals given,
Where the earth-doomed soul for ever
Loses sight of heaven.
HARRIET LTSZT.
(Born 1819).
Miss HARRIET WINSLOW, a native of Port
land, in Maine, was married in 1848 to Mr.
Charles Liszt, of Pennsylvania, and they have
since resided in Boston. Mrs. Liszt is the au
thor of a few beautiful poems, thegrea ter n um
ber of which have been printed in the annuals.
WHY THIS LONGING?
WHY this longing, thus for ever sighing
For the far off, unattained, and dim ;
While the beautiful, all round thee lying,
OflTers up its low, perpetual hymn ?
Wouldst thou listen to its gentle teaching,
All thy restless yearning it would still :
Leaf, and flower, and laden bee, are preaching
Thine own sphere, though humble, first to fill.
Poor indeed thou must be, if around thee
Thou no ray of light and joy canst throw ;
If no silken cord of love hath bound thee
To some little world through weal or wo :
If no dear eyes thy fond love can brighten —
No fond voices answer to thine own ;
If no brother's sorrow thou canst lighten
By daily sympathy and gentle tone.
Not by deeds that win the crowd's applauses;
Not by works that give thee world-renown ;
Not by martyrdom, or vaunted crosses,
Canst thou win and wear the immortal crown
Daily struggling, though unloved and lonely,
Every day a rich reward will give ;
Thou wilt find, by hearty striving only,
And truly loving, thou canst truly live.
JULIET H. L. CAMPBELL.
Miss JULIET H. LEWIS, now Mrs. CAMP
BELL, is a daughter of the Hon. Ellis Lewis,
president of me second judicial district of
Pennsylvania. At an early age she distin
guished herself as a writer of poetry ; and
since her marriage, to Mr. James H. Camp
bell, a member of the bar of Pottsville, on
the seventh of June, 1843, she has been a
frequent contributor, of both prose and verse,
to the magazines and annuals. During many
years of her maiden life she was an only
child, and, without companions of her own
age, was in constant association with her
parents. She frequently accompanied her
father on his professional and judicial jour
neys ; and I remember meeting her at West
Point, in her fourteenth or fifteenth year,
while Judge Lewis was discharging the
duties of an official visiter to the Military
Academy there. She had then a reputation
for genius, and a few exhibitions of her pre
cocious powers had caused her to be ranked
with the Davidsons, who were then subjects
of much conversation. Judge Lewis is a
student of
" The old and antique rhyme,"
and a poet of no mean powers ; and to the
peculiar nature of her filial relations, and her
consequent intimacy with many persons of
eminent abilities and dignified character, she
owes the early development of her capacities
and her accurate knowledge of the world.
DREAMS.
MAXY, oh man ! are the wild dreams beguiling
Thy spirit of its restlessness, and ever
TIiou rushest onward, some new prize pursuing,
Like the mad waves of a relentless river.
First love, the morning sun of thy existence,
Enchants thy path with glories and with bliss :
Oh linger! for the shadowy hereafter
Hath naught to offer that can equal this.
Linger, and revel in thy first young dreaming,
The holiest that can thrill thy yearning heart —
Husband the precious moments, the brief feeling
Of youthful ecstasy will soon depart.
Seek not to win too soon that which thou lovest,
"When winning will but hreak the magic spell :
Love on, but seek not, strive not — the attainment
Will cloy thy fickle heart, thy dream dispel.
Vain is the warning ! Death as soon will listen
To the beseechings of his stricken prey;
Or Time will tarry when the cowering nations
Shrink from their desolating destiny !
Thou art as fierce as F;ite in thy pursuing —
Thou art impetuous as the flight of Time;
And didst thou love a star, thy mad presuming
Would seek to grasp it,tiiough thou thus shouldst
break th' eternal chime.
And now Ambition, like a radiant angel,
Attracts thy vision and enchains thy thought :
Ambition is thy god, and thou art laying
Thy all before the insatiate Juggernaut;
The health, the strength, which crowned thy youth
with glory,
The friends who loved thee in thy early day,
The clinging love which once thy bosom cherished —
All these are cast, like worthless weeds, away.
Take now the prize for which thou'st madly bar
tered,
Thy first, best treasures ; and in lonely grief
Enjoy Fame's emptiness, and, broken hearted,
Feed on the poison of thy laurel leaf;
Then, sated, turn in bitter disppointment
From the applause of Flattery's fawning troop,
And curse, within thy cheated heart's recesses,
Ambition's demon, and thyself his dupe !
These are the visions of thy youth and manhood :
With disappointment wilt thou grow more sage ]
Alas, more grovelling yet, and more degrading,
Is avarice, the sordid dream of age !
When all the joys of summer have departed,
And life is stripped a'ike of birds and bloom,
'Tis sad to see Age, in his dotage, treasure
The withered leaves beside his yawning tomb !
Yes, many are thy dreams, while gentle woman
Hath but one vision, and it is of thee !
Faith, hope, and charity, (most Christian graces,)
In her meek bosom dwell, a trinity
Combined in unit; and an earthly godhead,
Whose name is Love, demands her worshipping:
And she, e'en as the Hindoo to his idol,
The blind devotion of her heart doth bring ;
And when her god of clay hath disappointed,
Earth can enchant no more — she looks above,
Laying her crushed heart on her Savior's bosom •
Love was her heaven, now Heaven is her love.
356
JULIET H. L. CAMPBELL.
NIGHT-BLOOMING FLOWERS.
FAIR buds ! I've wandered day by day
To this sequestered spot,
That I might catch your earliest smiles,
And yet ye open not.
The morning mists are scattered now,
No cloud is in the sky ;
The sun, like a benignant king,
Smiles from his throne on high,
While birds, in gushing melody,
Are offering homage up ;
And sister flowers, beneath his gaze,
Ope wide each fragile cup :
Why shut ye then your incense in,
And hide your loveliness,
As though you may not share their joy
Beneath the sun's caress ]
Now wake ye ! 'tis the sunset hour,
The day king has gone down —
Yet still upon the mountain's top
Is seen his brilliant crown •
Awake ye ! if its gleaming gems,
Its bands of glittering gold,
Its glorious, lifelike radiance,
Departing, ye'd behold.
The river's touched with glowing light,
And rolls a crimson flood,
While heaven's blush has lent its hues
Unto the leafy wood :
Still are you folded to your dreams 1
Bright must those visions be,
If they surpass the gorgeousness
Of heaven's pageantry ]
Good night ! the stars are gemming heaven,
And seem like angels' eyes,
Resuming now their silent watch
Within the far-off skies ;
They nightly on their burning thrones,
Like guardian spirits keep
Familiar vigil o'er the world,
Wrapt in its solemn sleep ;
And tenderly they gaze on us,
Those children of the air,
While every ray they send to you
Some message seems to bear,
That stirs you to the inmost core :
You thrill beneath their beams,
And start and tremble wildly, like
Ambition in his dreams.
Now, lo ! ye burst your emerald bonds,
And ope your languid eyes,
And spread your loveliness before
Those dwellers of the skies;
While incense from your grateful hearts
Like prayer ascends to heaven,
.\ml kindly dew and starry light
Are answering blessings given.
"Ask and ye shall receive," you seem
To whisper to my heart,
AnM move me in vour worshipping
To take an active part.
Sweet teachers ! 'tis an hour for prayer,
When hushed are sounds of mirth,
And slumber rests his balmy wing
Upon the weary earth ;
When all the ties that bind the soul
To worldliness are riven —
Then heartfelt prayers, like loosened birds,
Will wing their way to heaven.
A STORY OF SUNRISE.
WHERK the old cathedral towers,
With its dimly lighted dome,
Underneath its morning shadow
Nestles my beloved home ;
When the summer morn is breaking
Glorious, with its golden beams,
Through my open latticed window
Matin music wildly streams.
Not the peal of deep-toned organ
Smites the air with ringing sound —
Not the voice of singing maiden
Sighing softer music round ;
Long ere these have hailed the morning,
Is the mystic anthem heard,
Wildly, fervently, outpouring
From the bosom of a bird.
Every morn he takes his station
On the cross which crowns the spire,
And with heaven-born 'inspiration,
Vents in voice his bosom's fire ;
Every morn when light and shadow,
Struggling, blend their gold and gray,
From the cross, midway to heaven,
Streams his holy melody.
Like the summons from the turrets
Of an eastern mosque it seems:
" Come to prayer, to prayer, ye faithful !"
Echoes through my morning dreams.
Heedful of the invitation
Of the pious messenger,
Lo ! I join in meek devotion
With so lone a worshipper.
And a gushing, glad thanksgiving
From my inmost heart doth thrill,
To our Ever Friend in heaven,
As our blent glad voices trill.
Then the boy who rests beside me
Softly opes his starry eyes,
Tosses back his streaming ringlets,
Gazes round in sweet surprise.
He, though sleeping, felt the radiance
Struggling through the curtained gloom
Heard the wild, harmonious hymning
Break the stillness of my room :
These deliciously commingled
With the rapture of his dreams,
And the heaven of which I 've told him
On his childish vision gleams.
Guardian seraphs, viewless spirits,
Brooding o'er the enchanted air,
Pause, with folded wings, to listen
To the lispings of his prayer ;
Up, to the recording angel,
When their ward on earth is done,
They will bear the guileless accents
Of my infant's orison !
ELISE JUSTINE BAYARD.
Miss BAYARD, a daughter of one of the
few old historical families of New York who
sail preserve fortune and position, has, by a
few brilliant lyrics published in the maga
zines, revived attention to a name which
figures 111 the early provincial annals of her
native state, and which in later times was
prominent among the commercial notabilities
cf the ciiy of her birth. A lady of leisure,
fortune, and general accomplishment, is not
likdy to bestow any very severe study upon
the art of poetry ; but the amateur votary in
this instance has shown a vigor of thought,
emotion, and expression, in some of her pro
ductions, which gives the highest promise oi
what she may accomplish, should she devote
her fine intelligence to literature.
The following poems were first printed
in the Literary World, and Miss Bayard has
published a few more in the Knickerbocker
Magazine and in other miscellanies. Among
her compositions that have been circulated
in manuscript are some, of a more ambitious
character, that would vindicate higher enco
miums than will here be adventured upon
her abilities.
A FUNERAL CHANT FOR THE
OLD YEAR.
'Tis the death night of the solemn Old Year!
And it calleth from its shroud
With a hollow voice and loud,
But serene :
And it saith, " What have I given,
That hath brought thee nearer Heaven 1
Dost thou weep, as one forsaken,
For the treasures I have taken ]
Standest thou beside my hearse
With a blessing or a curse ?
s it well with thee, or worse,
That I have been 1"
Tis the death night of the solemn Old Year !
The midnight shades that rall —
They will serve it for a pall,
In their gloom :
And the misty vapors crowding
Are the withered corse enshrouding ;
And the black clouds looming olf in
The far sky, have p'unied the coffin .
But the vaults of human souls,
Where the memory unrolls
All her tear-besprinkled scrolls,
Are its tomb !
'Tis the death night of the solemn Old Year !
The moon hath gone to weep,
With a mourning still and deep,
For her loss :
The stars dare not assemble
Through the murky night to tremble ;
Tiie naked trees are groaning
With an awful, mystic moaning;
Wind's sweep upon the air,
Which a solemn message bear,
And hosts, whose banners wear
A crowned cross !
'Tis the death night of the solemn Old Year !
Who' make the funeral train,
When the queen hath ceased to reign !
Who are here
With the golden crowns that follow,
All invested with a halo 1
With a splendor transitory
Shines the midnight from their glory ;
And the paean of their song
Rolls the aisles of space along —
But the left hearts are less strong,
For they were dear !
}Tis the death night of the solemn Old Year !
With a dull and heavy tread,
Tramping forward with the dead,
Who come last ?
Lingering with their faces groundward,
Though their feet are marching onward,
They are shrieking — they are calling
On the rocks in tones appalling :
But Earth waves them from her view,
And the God-light dazzles through —
And they shiver, as spars do,
Before the blast !
'T is the death night of the solemn Old Year !
We are parted from our place
In her motherly embrace,
And are alone !
For the infant and the stranger,
It is sorrowful to change her :
She hath cheered the night of mourning
With a promise of the dawning ;
She hath shared in our delight
Wifh a gladness true and bright :
Oh ! we need her jov to-night —
But she is jrone !
357
358
ELISE JUSTINE BAYARD.
ON FIXDJXG THE KEY OF AN OLD
PIANO.
Uvux K, unlock the shrines of memory,
And liid her many keys their voices send
I"|» in the silent hour unto me.
Speak ! that the tones of other years may lend
Their vanished harmonies and lost romance
To days immersed in gloom and dissonance.
Thou, who the whi'e unconscious played thy part,
And called fair music from her silent cell
To echo murmurs from the gushing heart,
Come ! wake once more the departed spell :
I fain would hear of things and thoughts again,
Which ming'ed often with the stealing strain.
Hark ! it comes creeping on : it is an air •
Full of strange wailing — mournfully profound ;
Some music-spirit moaning in despair,
Prisoned in that sweet harrier of sound :
And yet, methinks " might I a captive be,
If thus environed in captivity !"
And shadowy forms around the instrument
Come close y pressing, whispering low words
'I hat keep time with the music, redolent
Of deep vibrations in the hidden chords
That round the heart their hurried measure keep,
And sway its pulses with resistless sweep.
Voice of the voiceless ! Graves give up their dead,
And at thy word departed echoes ring,
Familiar caro's from the lips that fled
Long weary years ago, with fatal wing,
T'nto t'lc si'ent regions of the tomb,
And died away there in its hollow gloom.
Hush ! other instruments are creeping in
To, perfect the concordance of the whole,
And well remembered voices now begin
To bear on wings invisible my soul.
My own ! amongst them I can hear my own —
Alas ! 'tis almost a forgotten tone !
Was it eve dark'ning o'er the pleasant room,
When the soft breezes of the summer night
Breathed through its atmosphere a faint perfume,
Or when the autumn's crimson fire-light
G'owed upon every brow— thou still wert there,
Wreck of departed days, with many an air.
Joyous or sorrowful — profound or wild —
Swiftly thy sweeping chords gave out their tones,
Li dit us the laughter of a sinless child —
l)rc|i ;is tin- anguish told in captive moans —
Smooth as the How of rivers to the sea —
Irregular as dark insanity.
Their have been hands that are beneath the mould,
(I seem to feel their dullness in thy touch)
Eyes, wept the whi'e they moved, that now are cold
As this impassive metal : yet are such
The things that bind us nearest, move us most,
And leave a hopeless voice when they are lost.
Now, stranger hands across those keys will run,
And other walls for other groups surround,
And stranger eyes look lovingly upon
The unconscious mover of the realm of sound :
That realm, once sacred, my sweet home, to thee,
And ever sacred to my memory.
But thou, impassive thing, thus severed wide
From thy sole wealth in those harmonious waves,
Another empire be thine own beside :
Be thou the pass-key to the spirit caves,
Thou the deliverer of their captive throng,
The portal spirit of the gater of song.
SPIRITUAL BEAUTY.
THAT pale and shadowy beauty,
It haunts my vision now :
The genius radiating
From the dazzling marble brow —
The high and saintly fervor,
The meek and childlike faith,
The trusting glance, which sayeth
More than mortal accent saith :
They haunt me when the night-winds swell,
And daylight can not break their spell.
I see the blue eye shining
Through the lashes as they fall,
An inward glory speaking
To the inward life of all —
A ray that was illumined
At the far celestial light,
And burns through mist and »hadow,
A beacon ever bright,
Serene, seraphic, and sublime,
And changeless with the flight jf time.
A faint, transparent rose-light
Is trembling on the cheek,
And lingering on the pale lip —
A glow that seems to speak :
It wavers like the taper
Dim lit at forest shrine,
When night-winds whisper to it :
It breathes of the Divine,
W7ith its ethereal mystery,
Too fragile of the earth to be.
Her grace is as a shadow —
As undefinable ;
Wedded to every motion thus,
And rarely beautiful.
Untaught, and all unconscious,
It hath a voice to me
Which eloquently speaketh
Of inward harmony :
Of Soul and Sense together swayed —
To the First Soul an offering made.
That pale and shadowy beauty,
It seemed an inward thing —
A spiritual vision —
A chaste imagining :
Not all in form or feature
The fairy phantom dwelt,
But, like the air of heaven,
Was yet less seen than felt —
A presence the true heart to move
To praise, and prayer, and holy love.
ELISE JUSTINE BAYARD.
359
THE SEA AND THE SOVEREIGN.
It is said that after the Heath of Piince William, eldest son of Henry I.,
kin- of England, who was wrecked off the coast of Normandy, tlie
nionitrch was nevei seen to smile more.
OPKX, ye ruthless waves!
Open the mouths of your uncounted graves,
To swallow up a king !
It is no common thing :
A kingdom in one man incarnated
Goes down to hold his court among your dead !
Jewels lie fathoms down
To glisten, set in crystal, on his crown;
A coral carcanet
An insect realm may set
(A bauble that a king were proud to wear)
Upon his marble throat, all stiff and bare.
Build him an amber throne,
And deck it well with many a burning stone;
. And let his footstool be
The lapis lazuli ;
And hang his hall with stalactites, whose sheen
May make a daylight in the submarine.
An argosy of pearls
May glisten in his waving yellow curls :
I ween no wealthier prince
Hath swayed a kingdom, since
The silver was as dust in Judah's street,
Trodden by Solomon's imperial feet.
Out bursts the ancient Sea
With bitter merriment in mockery :
" Take thou," she saith, " the gem
To deck thy diadem —
The hidden riches of my caves be thine ;
I have thy treasure — pay thyself in mine !
" The pomp is bootless now,
A gemmed tiara for that fleshless brow !
There is no need of thrones
For those enamelled bones;
Of daylight for those hollow, sightless eyes !
I rob not: take thou booty for my prize."
There is a broken groan,
A wail of sorrow from a kingly throne ;
There is a human heart
Of which he was a part
Whom thou hast swallowed, thou devouring Sea !
A father's heart and cry of agony !
For him thy gifts are brought —
For him thine ores with cunning skill are wrought.
He only cries aloud :
" I crave but for a shroud !
Oh Ocean, pitiless, relentless one !
Thy riches keep : give back, give back my son !
" Could I but see my child
In death, rny bitter anguish were more mild ;
His buried form unseen
Stands day and me between — •
My vision blinds, my soul, my reason warps ;
Ocean ! I would but once behold his corpse !"
Day laughs out on the sky
With the glad brightness of her waking eye ;
In the all-blessed Spring
Earth is a happy thing ;
Yea, on her face the false and murderous Sea
Wears smiles of peace : but never smileth HE !
The altar shows the bride
Full of rneek gladness by her lover's side;
And childhood's sweet caress
Betokens happiness;
Nay, weary age in infant purity
Finds cause for smiles: but never smileth he I
Folly forgets her chime,
Awed by that sorrow reverend and sublime ;
Forgets Joy to be glad ;
Forgets Grief to be sad ;
Smiles tell him, " Gone !" and at his coming fleo.
What lip dare smile — for never smileth he !
The dead man all the while
Lies with the horrid semblance of a smile
Parting his hollow skull ;
And glad and beautiful
His angel in a new felicity
Smiles from the skies : but never smileth he !
WORSHIP.
LOVE ! for the true heart's sacred love is its Crea
tor's will !
His glorious law of sympathy it labors to
fulfil :
So work out in its smaller sphere, with faithful dili
gence,
The mighty, universal schemes of his omnipo
tence.
Love ! if ye can not learn to love your brother whom
ye see,
How shall ye grow in faith toward the unseen
Deity]
A true heart's love is worship. Indirectly it is
praise,
And prayer : for piety is not to cultivate one
phase
Of this anomalous being, with its wide capa
city —
Its vast illimitable range of power and fan
tasy :
The length, the breadth, the height, the depth, of
this which we call man,
God hath made this to worship him, as nothing
narrow can :
Universality of gifts upon one creature shed,
And to the Benefactor's praise shall all save one
be dead?
Mind, soul, heart, strength, all else of good, of rich
and beautiful,
Lavished upon the human frame, yet every sense
be dull
Save one ! one only live to him of all this glorious
tower? —
Forbid it, Honor, Truth ! No ! work is piety of
power ;
Genius is piety of mind ; Love piety of heart ;
Religion piety of soul. It will not serve to part
These elements of worship, and then blasphemous
ly give
The mutilated corpse to Him through whom the
whole must live.
LUCY LARCOM.
(Born 1826).
Miss LARCOM is a native of Massachusetts,
and was for several years employed in one
of the factories at Lowell. She has been a
frequent contributor to the Lowell Offering,
fjr the early volumes of which she wrote a
series of parables that attracted much atten
tion. She is now a teacher in Illinois, but
continues to write for this interesting
peri
odical, which illustrates so beautifully the
character, taste, and abilities, of the New
England operatives. Mr. Whittier, in refer
ring to some of her poems, observes : " That
they were written by a young woman whose
life has been no long holyday of leisure, but
one of toil and privation, does not indeed en
hance their intrinsic merit, but it lends them
an interest in the eyes of those who, like our-,
selves, long to see the cords of caste broken,
and the poor niceties of aristocratic exclu-
siveness, irrational and unchristian every
where, but in addition ridiculous in a coun
try like ours, vanish before the true nobility
of mind — the natural graces of a good heart
and a useful life — the self-sustained dignity
of a spirit superior to the folly of accounting
labor degradation, and usefulness a calamity,
and which can not count as common and un
clean the duties which God has sanctified."
ELISHA AND THE ANGELS.
THE cheerful sunbeams hastened up the east,
Chasing the gray mists to the mountain-tops,
And morning burst upon Gilboa's hills.
The playful kids were leaping o'er the crags;
The little happy birds, that all night long
In the dry clefts had found a nestling-place,
Were flying sunward, singing hyrnns of praise;
And from the green, awakening vales arose
The sound of bleating herds and lowing kine.
Eiisha's servant, issuing early forth
To the day's needful toil, with vigorous step
Trod a worn path that wound among the rocks.
Ho paused to gaze upon the enlivening scene,
And hear the harmony of Nature's joy,
And bless the God of morning.
Suddenly
A flash of light unusual struck his eye:
Half doubting, he beheld a line of spears
And burnished shields, that from a neighboring hill
In mocking splendor threw the sunlight back;
And saw, stretched far around, a circle wide
Of rich war-chariots, while horsemen armed
Crowded each mountain-pass and deep defile.
Too well he knew the terrible array —
The Assyrian host, his master's foes and his !
Fear, like an inward demon, blanched his cheek,
Stared from his eye, and shook his nerveless limbs.
Poor, feeble man ! why, e'en the little birds,
That sung so blithely o'er the frightful chasms,
Had taught him stronger confidence than this.
Yet, weak as he, how often we foruet
That in our great All-seeing Father's sight
"We are worth more than sparrows !
Back he turned
I 'nto the prophet's dwelling, nor did rest
Till, faint with terror, at his feet he fell.
The man of God upon his threshold stood,
His forehead bared unto the streaming light,
And inspiration beaming from his eye.
Doth he not tremble ? Nay ; the cedar-tree,
That stands in unmoved grandeur at his side,
Is not more firm than he. Calmly he scans
The panoply of war before him spread,
As 'twere a flock reposing in the shade.
He hears his prostrate servant's stifled cry —
"Alas, my master! how shall we escape?"
How foolish must such fright have seemed to him
Whose eyes the Lord had opened ! Should he deign
To speak a soothing word, and lull his fears?
If man might e'er be proud, 'twas surely he,
Who had been singled out from common men
To be an oracle unto his kind.
His was the dignity sublime of one
Who feels divinity within him burn, [God
And thinks the thoughts and speaks the words of
But haughtiness belongs to narrow souls,
And wisdom is too godlike to be proud.
Elisha owned himself of kindred dust
With that frail trembler. , Mildly he replied :
" Fear thou no more ; for lo ! a mightier force
Than all yon heathen host, is on our side." —
"But where?" the servant's doubtful glance in
quires.
The prophet answered not, but clasped his hands,
Looked up to heaven, and prayed in tones subdued,
" Lord, open thou his eyes, that he may see !"
How changed the scene ! these rocks, that lately
Opaque and dull beneath the azure sky, [lay
! Are robed in glory that outshines the sun.
Embattled legions gird the prophet round
Withb'azonedbannersand heaven-tempered spears,
Horses and chariots, in whose fiery sheen
360
LUCY" LARCOM.
361
The pomp of Syria's army but appears
Like a dim candle in the noonday blaze:
The mount is full of angels !
Blest were we,
When every earthly prospect is shut in,
And all our mortal helpers disappear,
If, with Faith's eye undimmed and opened wide,
We might behold the blessTd an^el-troop
Which God, our God, has promised shall encamp
Round those who fear his name. Our sickly doubts,
That flit like foul night-ravens o'er our souls,
Wou'd hush their screams and fly before the dawn ;
And we should learn to fear no evil thing,
And in Adversity's grim gaze could smile.
Sometimes, when wandering in a labyrinth
Whence we can find no clue, and all is dark,
We wonder why our spirits do not die.
Perhaps in secret bowed, some holy soul
Utters for u-; the prophet's kind lequest;
And we, though dimly, are allowed to see
The prints of angels' feet along the road ;
And our hearts, beating lightly, follow on
After the step.-; that sound before, albeit
Uncertain whose they are, though we are sure
Of a safe outlet from the tangled way.
Father of Spirits ! Savior of our souls !
Let heavenly guides go with us down life's way;
And when we come unto that river's brink
Upon whose other bank in light and love
We shall be as the angels — then we know
Thou wilt be near us, though this earthborn clay,
Shrinking in mortal terror from the plunge
Which shall release its tenant unto bliss,
May with foreboding clouds obscure our faith
And hide thy presence. Oh! hear now one prayer
Which then our hearts may be too faint to breathe :
** Lord, open thou our eyes, that we may see !"
THE BURNING PRAIRIE.
XG throws her dusky mantle
O'er the boundless, grassy sea ;
Here and there, like ships at anchor,
In the moonlight stands a tree ;
While the stars that nightly travel
O'er the highway of the skies,
Bend upon earth's weary pilgrims
Still and clear their earnest eyes.
Now the constellations brighten :
Like a stern and warlike lord,
Bright Orion leads the pageant —
He of gleaming belt and sword.
In his wake glide forth the Pleiads ;
By the pole-star leaps the Bear ;
Down the star-paved road in silence
Rides the Lady in her Chair !
But behold ! an earthly glimmer
Rises 'neath the starry beam ;
Far along the prairie's border
How the ruddy fringes stream !
See the red flames darting forward,
Sparkling through the withered grass,
WThile the lurid smoke uprolling
Stains the azure as they pass.
Who the distant blaze enkindled ?
Can it be some savage clan
Flinging out the wingt-d wildfire
To affright the pale-faced man?
Nay : for Mississippi's water
Speeds no sachem's light canoe.
And beside the dark Missouri
Are the Indians' wigwams few.
'T is the farmer's mighty besom :
Thus he sweeps the fertile plain —
Lays it bare unto the baptism
Of the softening vernal rain.
Where the billowy flame is rolling,
Shall a warmer sun behold
Verdant pastures richly laden,
Harvests tinged with wavy gold.
Brighter visions burst upon me ;
For the dear enchantress, Hope,
Bids me look into the future
Through her magic telescope.
Lo ! a glorious blaze ascending —
Purer, loftier doth it grow,
Every ridge and swell revealing,
Softened in the mellow glow.
'T is the central fire of Freedom,
Lighted on the nation's heart :
Cynosure of happy millions,
Fadeless peace its rays impart ;
Truth and Love, their white wings waving.
Sit and fan it all day long,
And to meet its warmth and brightness
Ever pours a grateful throng.
Let it blaze ! The Pilgrim's watch-fire.
Kindled first on Plymouth rock,
Must not die upon the prairies,
Nor with fitful flickerings mock.
Every lowly cabin window
Shall reflect its steady light,
And beyond the red horizon
It shall make the country bright.
Then the gazers of the nations,
And the watchers of the skies,
Looking through the coming ages
Shall behold, with joyful eyes,
In the fiery track of Freedom
Fall the mild baptismal rain,
And the ashes of old Evil
Feed the Future's golden grain.
EDITH MAY."
" EDITH MAY" is a name bestowed, I be
lieve, by Mr. N. P. Willis, upon one cf the
most brilliant of our younger poets. She is
a native and until recently was a resident of
Philadelphia ; but for three or four years her
home has been in " the most secluded part
of Pennsylvania, on the borders of a small
lake, in one of that state's most romantic
neighborhoods." The character cf her ge
nius will be seen in her Count Julio, which
was written when she was but seventeen
years of age ; and the critical reader will
feel as much hope as pleasure as he sees in
its splendid blossoming promise of future
fruits with which few of the productions of
female genius can be compared.
Her dramatic power, observation of .ife,
imagination, fancy, and the easy and naiural
flow of her verse, which is noAvhere marred
by any blemish of imperfect taste, entitle this
very youthful poet to a place in the common
es.imation inferior to none occupied by wri
ters of her years. And there are scattered
through her poems gleams of an intelligence
which they do not fully disclose, and felici
ties of expression betraying a latent power
greater than is exerted, so that we are not
authorized to receive what she has accom
plished, brilliant as it is, as a demonstration
of the entire character and force of her fac
ulties.
COUNT JULIO.
Mm piles beneath whose fretted cornices
Echo still babbles of a glorious past,
Dwelt Julio, the miser. Nobly born,
Reared amid palaces, and trained from youth
To the gay vices of a liberal age,
How came it now, that year on year sped on
To leave the proud count in his silent halls,
Hoarding the gold once lavished ]
Young and fair,
The haughtiest noble of the Roman court,
The stateliest of the highborn throng that graced
Its princely revels, he had left the feast,
Bidding the bright wine that he quaffed in parting,
Be to him thence accurs d. Nevermore
Checked he his courser by the Tiber's bank,
Nor struck the sweet chords of his lute, nor trod
Glad measures with the bright-lipped Roman dames;
And from the lintels of his banquet-hall
The spider balanced on its gossamer thread,
Dust heaped the silken couches, and where swept
Golden-fringed curtains to the chequered floor,
The rat <,rn;i\vnl silently, and gray moths fed
On the rich produce of the Asian loom.
Men shunned bis threshold, and his palace doors
Creaked on their rusty hinges. Prince and peasant
Alike turned coldly at his coming step;
The very bepcrar, that at noontide lay
Basking 'neath sunlight in the quiet street,
Stretched not his hand forth as the miser passed.
He cared not for their scorn. Man's breath to him
Was like the wind that sweeps the scath d oak.
And finds no leaf to flutter! Fate had left
Only two things on earth for him to love
The gold he heaped, and the fair, motherless child,
j Who by bis side grew up to womanhood :
! And these he worshipped, loathing all things else.
His couch was ruder than a cloistered monk's —
Bianca's head was pillowed upon down ;
His fare was scanty and his raiment coarse,
But she was clad like princes, and her board
i Heaped with the costliest viands. From the world
1 He shrank abhorrent, but Bianca shone
! Proudest and fairest in a brilliant court,
i Her youth had been most lonely. By his side
To watch the piling of the golden heaps
He told so greedilv ; to play alone
! In gardens where no hand had put aside
I The flowers and weeds, that in one tangled woof
Hung o'er the fountain's dusty bed, and crept
Round the tall porticoes ; perchance to sit
| Hour after hour all silent at his feet,
Twining her small arms and her baby throat
| With the rare treasures that his caskets held —
i Rubies, and pearls, and flashing carcanets,
j Her costly playthings — a!l companionless,
These were her childish pastimes. Years wore on,
Till the close dawn of perfect womanhood
Fiushed in her cheek and brightened in her eye — •
And the girl learned to know bow fair the face
Those dingy walls had cloistered from the sun ;
To bear her head more proudly, and to step,
If not so lightly, with a gracelier tread.
Love-songs were framed for her ; her midnight rest
Was broken by the sound of silver lutes,
And the young gallants caracoled their steeds
Gayly at eve beneath her ba'cony.
She went forth to the world, and careless lips
Told her the shame that was her heritage,
And scornful fingers poi;ited as she passed
To the rare jewels and the broidered robes
362
EDITH MAY."
363
That decked the miser's daughter ; envious tongues
Gilded anew the half-forgotten tale,
And it became the marvel of a!l Rome:
Thus, till the diadem of gems and gold
Burned on her white brow like a circling flame,
And she went writhing home, to weep — to loathe
The sordid parent who had brought this blight
Upon the joyous promise of her youth !
It was the still noon of a summer night,
When the young countess from her father's roof
Fled — with a noble of the Roman court.
Morn came, and through the empty corridors,
The balconies, the gardens, the wide halls,
In vain they sought her. Noon passed by, and then
The truth was guessed, not spoken ! Silently
Count Julio trod the marble staircases,
And pausing by the door that once was hers,
Stood a brief moment, and then, pressing on,
Stepped through the quiet chamber. All was still,
Bearing no traces of her recent flight.
Here lay a slipper, here a silken robe,
And here a lute thrown down, with a white glove
Flung carelessly beside it. Still the air
Breathed of the delicate perfumes she had loved.
He glanced but once around the empty room,
Then from the mirrored and silk-draperied walls
Cast his eye downward o'er his shrunken form,
His meagre garments. Few the words he spake,
And muttered low : but in them came a curse,
So blasphemous, so hideous in its depth
Of impotent rage, that they who at his side
Yet stood in lingering pity, with blanched lips
Turned to the threshold, and crept shuddering forth.
He breathed his sorrow to no human ear,
But left it channelled in his heart, to breed
Corruption there. None knew how wearily
The hours passed on beneath those lonely walls ;
None saw him, when by midnight still a watcher
He brooded o'er his anguish, pale and faint,
Starting and trembling, as inconstantly
The night winds swayed the curtains to and fro,
Fancying the rustle of her silken robe,
Her footfall on the staircase ! Time sped on
To strike the dulled bloom from his cheek, and sere
The soul that once had queened it on his brow.
A bent and wan old man, upon whose breast
Hung the neglected masses of his beard —
With tremulous hands, habitually clinched
Till the sharp nails wore furrows in the palms —
Thus stole he forth at even, and with eyes
Lost in the golden future of his dreams, [ing.
Passed through the busy crowds unmarked, unheed-
Once had he looked upon Bianca's face —
Once had she knelt before him, with her child
Gasping upon her breast, and prayed for succor.
The unwept victim of a drunken brawl,
Her lord had fallen, and the palace walls
That owned her mistress were deserted now.
She had braved fear and hunger, till her babe
Wailed dying on her bosom, and so urged •
Pride, shame, forgotten in a mother's love —
Clung to his knees for pardon. But in vain :
lie cursed her as she knelt — bade her go forth,
And mid the loathsome suppliants that unveil
Disease and suffering ;o the eye of wealth,
Bare, too, her anguish to the glance of Pity ;
Then, as she lingered, spurned her from his feet
With words that chilled her agony to dread,
And drove her thence in horror !
From that day
His very blood seemed charged with bitterness.
Miser and usurer both, upon the wrecks
Of others' happiness he built his own ;
His name became accursi d in the land,
And with his withering soul his body grew
Scarce human in its ghastly hideousness.
The bulb enshrouds the lily ; and within
The most unsightly form may folded lie
The white wings of an angel. But in him
Seemed all the sweet humanities of life
Coldly encharnelled ; and no hand divine
Rolled from his breast the weary weight of sin,
To bid them go forth unto suffering man
Like gracious ministers.
And she, alas !
Whom he had madly driven forth to ruin —
Earth hath no words to tell how dark the change
That clothed her fallen spirit. O'er the waste
Of want and horror that engulfed her fortunes,
She had sent forth the white dove, Puritv,
And it returned no more. The Roman dames
Took net her name upon their scornful lips.
Her form became a model for the artist ;
And her rare face went down to future ages,
Limned on his canvass. Ye may mark it yet,
In the long galleries of the Vatican,
Varied but still the same : now robed in pride,
As monarchs in their garbs of Syrian purple ;
Now with a Magdalen's blue mantle drawn
Over the bending forehead. As the marble
Sleeps in unsullied whiteness on the tomb,
Taking no taint from the foul thing it covers,
Her beauty bore no blight from guilt, but lived
A monument that made her name immortal.
Night had uprisen, clothed with storms and gloom;
No taper lit the solitary hall,
And to and fro, with feeble steps, its lord [then,
Paced through the darkness. Midnight came, and
Pausing beside the groaning door, that weighed
Its rusty hinge, Count Julio, crouching, peered
Into the gloom without; for stea'thy feet,
WThose echo struck upon his wary ear,
Had passed the lower halls, and slowly now
Trod the great slaircase.
'T was no robber's step :
Faint, s'ow, and halting, ever and anon,
As though in weariness. His sharpened sense
Caught, mid the fitful pauses of the wind,
The headlong dashing of the driven rain,
A sound of painful breathing — nay, of sobs —
Bursting, and then as suddenly suppressed.
Shuddering he stood ; and as the storm's red bolt
Leaped through the windows, lighting as it passed,
A dusky shape, that cowered at the flash,
He shrank within the chamber, and once more
Listened in silence.
Nearer came the sound :
A tall form crossed the threshold, and threw back
What seemed a heavy mantle. Then again
Glanced the pale lightning, and Count Julio knew
"EDITH MAY;
By the long hair that swept her garments' hem,
Bianc.i ! —
They who through that night of fear
Kept watc . with storm and terror till the dawn,
Bore its dark memories even to the tomb :
For shrieks and cries seemed mingled with the wind;
And voices, as of warring fiends, prevailed
O'er its low muttering*. Morn awoke at last;
And with it* earliest gleam Count Julio crept
Out through his palace gardens. Swollen drops
Hung from the curved roofs of the porticoes;
His footsteps dashed them from the earth-bowed
And from the tangles of the matted grass ; [leaves,
But over-head the day broke gloriously.
V\ here once a fountain to the sunlight leaped,
A marble naiad, by its weedy bed,
Stood on her pedestal. With hand outstretched
She grasped a hollowed shell, now brimming o'er;
While a green vine that round her arm had crept,
Hose, serpent-like, and in the chd ice dipped
Its cur.ing tendrils. Thither turned his eye
Just as the red uprising of the morn
Flushed the pale statue, and crept brightening down,
Even to its very base. Mantled and prone,
A heap that scarcely seemed a human form,
Crouched in the shadow, and with totteiirig feet
The old man hurried onward. Motionless,
It stirred not at his footsteps : nearer still — [hands
He marked a white lace, upward turned, clinched
Locked in the luu'r that swept its ghastly brow !
Shading his weak eyes from the blinding sun,
Cowering in trembling horror to the earth,
Still on he crept ; then bending softly down,
Spake in a smothered voice — " Hist, hist, Bianca !"
Oh, mockery ! Her ear that he had filled
With curses, woke not to the tones of love ; [not
The breast that he had spurned from him, heaved
At his wild anguish. Death had done its work:
The tempest had been merciless as the parent
That drove her forth to meet it ; and the flash
Of its red eye more withering than his scorn !
Shunned, both in penitence and guilt; forsaken
By those who only prized her for the beauty
Time and perchance remorse had touch'd with blight;
Drenched with the rain ; all breathless with the storm;
Homeless and hopeless — she had crept to him
Once more a suppliant: spurned rudely forth,
Here had lain down despairing, and so perished.
STORM AT TWILIGHT
TIIK roar of a chafed lion, in his lair
Begirt by levelled spears. A sudden flash,
Intense, yet wavering, like a beast's fierce eye
Searching the darkness. The wild bay of winds
Sweeps the burnt plains of heaven, and from afar
Linked clouds are riding up like eager horsemen,
Javelin in hand. From the north wings of twilight
There fulls unwonted shadow, and strange gloom
Cloisters the unwilling stars. The sky is roofed
With tempest, and the moon's i.cant rays fall through
Like light let dimly through the fissured rock
Vaulting a cavern. To the horizon
The qreen sea of the forest hath rolled back
Its levelled billows, and where mastlike trees
Sway to its bosom, here and there a vine, [aloft
Braced to some pine's bare shaft, clings — rocked
Like a bo'd mariner. There is no bough
But lifteth its appealing arm to Heaven.
The scudding grass is shivering as it flies,
And herbs and flowers crouch to their mother earth
Like frightened children, "fis more terrible
When the hoar thunder speaks, and the fleet wind
Stops, like a steed that knows his rider's voice —
For oh ! the rush that follows is the calm
Of a despairing heart ; and as a maniac
Loses his grief in raving, the mad storm,
Weeping hot tears, awakens with a sob
From its blank desolation, and shrieks on !
JULIETTE.
WHERE the rough crags lift, and the sea mews call,
Yet stands Earl Hubert's castle tall :
Close at the base of its western wall
The chafed waves stand at bay ;
And the May-rose twined in its banquet hall
Dips to the circling spray.
For the May-rose springs, and the ivy clings,
And the wallflower flaunts in the ruined bower,
And the sea-bird foldeth her weary wings
Up in the stone-gray tower.
Scaling an arch of the postern rude,
A wild vine dips to the ocean's flow ;
Deep in the niches the blind owls brood,
And the fringing moss hangs low
Where stout Earl Hubert's banner stood
Five hundred years ago !
Out from the castle's western wall
Jutteth a tower round and tall,
And leading up to the parapet
By a winding turret-stair:
Over the sea there looketh yet
A chamber small and square,
Where the faint daylight comes in alone
Through a narrow slit in the solid stone ;
And here, old records say,
Earl Hubert bore his wayward child
From courts and gallanis gay —
That, guarded by the billows wild,
And cloistered from her lover's arms,
Here might she mourn her wasted charms,
Here weep her youth away.
"One — two!" said the sentinel,
Pacing his rounds by the eastern tower.
Up in the turret a solemn knell
Tolled for the parting hour ;
Over the ocean its echo fell —
" One ! two !" — like a silver bell
Chiming afar in the sea-nymph's bower.
Shrill and loud was the sea-bird's cry,
The watch-dog bayed as the moon rose high,
The great waves swelled below ;
And the measured plash of a dipping oar
Broke softly through their constant roar,
And paused beneath the shade
Flung westward by that turret hoar
Where slept the prisoned maid.
The sentinel paced to and fro
EDITH MAY."
3(55
Under the castle parapet,
But, in her chamber, Ju iette
Heard not the tramp of his clanging foot,
Nor the watchdog baying near —
Only the sound of a low toned lute
Stole to her dreaming ear.
The moon rode up as the night wore on,
Looking down with a 1> hiding glare
Into that chamber still and lone,
Touching the rough-hewn cross of stone
And the prayer-beads glittering there —
The loosened waves of the sleeper's hair,
And the curve of her shou'der, white and bare !
She dreamed! she dreamed! that dreary keep
Melted away in the calm moonbeams;
The deep bell's call and the wave's hoarse sweep
Changed for the lull of a forest deep,
And the pleasant voice of streams.
She seemed to sit by a mossy stone,
To watch the blood-red sun go down
And hang on the verge of the horizon
Like a ruby set in a golden ring;
To hear the wild birds sing
Up in the larch-boughs, loud and sweet,
Over a surf where the soft waves beat
With a sound like a naiad's dancing feet.
For here and there on its winding way
Down by dingle and shady nook,
Under the white thorn's dropping spray
Glittered the thread of a slender brook ;
And scarce a roebuck's leap beyond,
Close at the brink of its grassy bound,
She heard her lover's chiding hound,
His bugle's merry play.
Oh ! it was sweet again to be
Under the free blue skies !
She turned on her pillow restless'y,
And the tears to her sleeping eyes
Came welling up as the full drops start
With Spring's first smile from a fountain's heart.
Up rose the maid in her dreamy rest,
And flung a robe o'er her shou'ders bare,
And gathered the threads of her floating hair,
Ere with a foot on the turret stair
She paused, then onward pressed,
As the tones of a soft lute broke again
Through the deeper chords of the voiceful main.
Steep and rude was the perilous way ;
Through loopholes square and small
The night looked into the turret gray,
And over the massive wall
In blocks of light the moonbeams lay ;
But the changeful ghosts of the showering spray
And the mirrored play of the waters dim
Rippled and glanced on the ceiling grim.
The moon looked into her sleeping eyes,
The night wind stirred her hair,
And wandering blindly, Juliette,
Close on the verge of the parapet,
Stood without in the open air.
Under the blue arch of the skies,
Save for the pacing sentinel,
Save for the ocean's constant swell,
There seemed astir no earthly thing.
Below, the great waves rose and fell,
Scaling ever their craggy bound,
But scarce a zephyr's dipping wing
Broke the silver crust of the sea beyond :
And in her lifelike dream
The maiden now had wandered on
To the brink of the slender stream ;
Then pausing, stayed her eager foot,
For with the brook's sweet monotone
Mingled the soft voice of a lute ;
And, where the levelled moonbeams played
Over the lap of a turfy glade,
A hound lay sleeping in the shade.
Rocked bv the light waves to and fro,
Scarcely an arrow's flight from shore,
Her lover in his bark below
Paused, resting on the oar,
Watching the foam-wreaths bead and fall
Like shattered stars from the castle wall.
And higher yet he raised his eyes —
Jesu ! he started with affright !
For painted on the dusky skies
Seemed hovering in the tremulous light
A figure small and angel white !
Against the last lay far and dim,
Touched by the moon's uncertain ray,
The airy form of the turret grim.
Doubtful he gazed a moment's space,
Then rowed toward the castle's base,
But checked his oar midway,
And gazing up at the parapet,
Shouted the one word, " Juliette !"
Lute, baying hound, and restless deep,
Each gave the clue bewildered Thought
Had followed through the maze of sleep,
And by her lulled ear faintly caught
Her lover's voice its echo wrought.
She heard him call, she saw him stand,
WTith smiling lip and beckoning hand ;
And closer pressed, and dreaming yet,
From the green border of the stream — •
From the o'erhanging parapet
Sprang forward with a scream !
Then once again the deep bell tolled
Up in the turret gray and old,
And, mingled with its lingering knell,
The echoed cry, half won, half lost,
Startled the weary sentinel,
Now slumbering at his post :
Yet, wakened from his dreamful rest,
He deemed the sound some wandering ghost,
Haunting the caves of Sleep,
For like a bird upon its nest
The hushed air brooded o'er the deep ;
And to his drowsy ear there crept
Only the voice of the choral waves —
Only the drip of the spray that wept,
And the ripples that sang through the weedy caves
Nor marked he, ere again he slept,
The muffled stroke of a hasty oar,
A steed's quick tramp along the shore.
When morning came, a shallop's keel
Grated the edge of the pebbly strand —
A maid's small foot and a knight's armed heel
Lay traced upon the sand !
13(56
EDITH MAY.'
SUMMER.
THE early Spring hath gone : I see her stand
Afar oil', on the hi. Is — white clouds, like doves,
Yoked by the south wind to her opal car,
And at her feet a lion and a lamb
Couched side by side. Irresolute Spring hath gone,
And Summer conies, like Psyche, zephyr-borne
To her sweet land of pleasures.
She is here !
Amid the distant vales she tarried long;
But she hath come, oh, joy ! for I have heard
Her many chorded harp the livelong day
Sounding from plains and meadows, where of late
Rattled the hail's sharp arrows, and where came
The wild north wind, careering like a steed
Unconscious of the rein. She hath gone forth
Into the forest, and its pois d leaves
Are [ latformed for the Zephyr's dancing feet.
Under its green pavi ions she hath reared
Most beautiful things. The Spring's pale orphans lie
She tered upon her breast; the bird's loved song
At morn outsoars his pinion, and when waves
Put on Night's silver harness, the still air
Is musical with soft tones. She hath baptized
Earth with her joyful weeping; she hath blessed
All that do rest beneath the wing of Heaven,
And all that hail its smile. Her ministry
Is typical of love ; she hath disdained
No gentle office, but doth bend to twine
The grape's light tendrils, and to pluck apart
The heart-leaves of the rose. She doth not pass
Unmindful the bruised vine, nor scorn to lift
The trodden weed; and when her lowlier children
Faint by the wayside, like worn passengers,
She is a gentle mother, all ni^ht long
Bathing their pale brows with her healing dews;
The hours are spendthrifts of her wealth ; the days
Are dowered with her beauty.
Priestess ! queen !
Amid the ruined temples of the wood
She hath rebui.t her altars, and called back
The scattered choristers, and over aisles
Where the slant sunshine, like a curious stranger,
G Lie 1 through arches and bare chairs, hath spread
A roof magnificent. She hath awaked
Her orac e, that, dumb and para'yzed,
Slept witi the torpid serpents of the lightning,
Bidding his dread voice — Nature's mightiest —
Speak mystically of all hidden things
To the attentive spirit.
There is laid
No knife upon her sacrificial altar,
And from her lips there comes no pealing triumph.
But to those crystal halls, where Silence sits
Enchanted, hath arisen a mingled strain
Of music, delicate as the breath of buds;
A nd on her shrine the virgin Hours lay
Odors and exquisite "dyes, like gifts that kings
Send from the spicy gardens of the East.
A FOREST SCENE.
I KXOW a forest vast and old —
A shade so deep, so darkly green,
That Morning sends her shaft of gold
In vain to pierce \*s, leafy screen :
I know a brake where sleeps the fawn,
The soft-eyed fawn, through noon's repose,
For noon, with all the calm of dawn,
Lies hushed beneath those dewy boughs,
Oh ! proudly then the forest kings
Their banners lift o'er vale and mount;
And cool arid fresh the wild grass springs,
By lonely path, by sylvan fount ;
There, o'er the fair, leaf-laden rill
The laurel sheds her clustered bloom,
And throned upon the rock-wreathed hill
The rowan waves his scarlet plume.
No huntsman's call, no having hound,
Scares from his rest the light-limbed stag ,
But following faint his airy bound,
Glad Echo leaps from crag to crag.
From morn till eve the wood-birds sing,
And, by the wi'd wave's glittering play,
The pheasant plumes her glossy wing,
The doe lies couched at close of day.
From slippery ledge, from moss-grown rock,
Dash the swift waters at a bound ;
And from the foam that veils the shock,
Floats every wavelet sparkle-crowned ;
Through brake, and dell, and lawny glade,
O'er gnarled root and mossy stone,
Beneath the forest's emerald shade
The stream winds murmuring, sparkling on
Far floating o'er its limpid breast
The lily sends her petals fair —
And, couched beneath her regal crest,
The balm-flower scents the drowsy air;
From spray and vine, o'er rocky ledge,
Hang blossoms wild of crimson dye ;
And on the curved and sanded edge
The pink-lined shells, wave-polished, lie.
There wakes no tone of idle mirth
Amid those shadows vast and dim,
But from the gentle lips of Earth
How soft and low her forest hymn !
How soft and low, where stirs the wind
Through the dark arches of the wood,
Where, gray with moss, the boughs entwined
Hang whispering o'er the chiming flood !
When twilight skies look faintly down,
When noon lies hushed on leaf and spray,
When midnight casts her silver crown
Before the throne of godlike day —
There, still, to earth's perpetual choir,
The same sweet harmony is given :
For angels wake her sacred lyre,
And every chord is strung by Heaven.
"EDITH MAY;
307
A POET'S LOVE.
THK stag leaps free in the forest's heart,
But thy step is lighter, my love, my bride !
Light as the quick-footed breezes that part
The plumy ferns on the mountain-side.
Swift as the zephyrs that come and pass
0 er the wave'.ess lake and the billowy grass;
1 hear thy voice where the white spray gleams,
In the one-toned bells of the rippled streams,
In the shivering boughs of the aspen tree,
In the wind that stirreth the silvery pine,
In the shell that rnoans of the distant sea —
Never was voice so sweet as thine !
Never a sound through the even dim
Came half so soft as thy vesper hymn.
I have followed fast from the lark's low nest
Thy breezy step to the mountain crest ;
The livelong day I have wandered on,
Till the stars were up, the twilight gone;
Ever unwearied where thou hast roved,
Fairest, and purest, and best beloved !
I have felt thy kiss in the leafy aisle,
And thy breath astir in my waving hair,
I have met the light of thy haunting smile
In the deep, still woods, and the sunny air,
For thou lookest down from the bending skies,
And the earth is glad with thy laughing eyes.
When my heart is sad and my pulse beats low,
Whose touch so light on my burning brow ]
Who cometh in dreams to my midnight sleep 1
Who bendeth over my noonday rest ]
Who singeth me songs in the forest deep,
Laying my head to her gentle breast]
When life grows dim to rny weary eye,
When joy departeth and sorrow is nigh,
Wrho, 'neath the track of the stars, save thee,
Speaketh or sirigeth of hope to me ?
There comes a time when the morn shall rise,
Yet charm no smile to thy film'd eyes;
There comes a time when thou liest low,
With t'.ie roses dead on thy frozen brow,
With a pall hung over thy trancvd rest,
And the pu'se asleep in thy silent breast.
There shall come a dirge through the valleys drear,
And a white-robed priest to thine icy bier :
His lip is cold, but his dim eyes weep, [deep.
And he maketh thy grave where the snow falls
Wo is me when I watch and pray
For the lightest tread of thy coming foot,
F->r the softest note of thy summer lay,
For the faintest chord of thy vine-strung lute !
\Vo is me when the storms sweep by,
And the mocking winds are my sole reply !
A SONG FOR AUTUMN.
KH the bird from the tasselled pine,
Where he sings like a hope in a gloomy breast ;
Tread down the blossoms that cling to the vine,
Winnow the blooms from the mountain's crest;
Let the balm-flower sleep where the small brooks
twine,
And the golden-rod treasure the vellow sunshine.
Muffle the bells of the faint-lipped waves;
Let the red leaves fall ; let the brown fawn leap
Through the golden fern ; in the weedy caves
Let the snake coil up for his winter sleep.
Let the ringed snake coil where the earth is drear,
Like a grief that grows cold as the heart grows sere.
Pluck down the rainbow ; make steadfast the throne
Of the star that was faint in the summer night ;
Let the white daughters of wave and sun
Weep as they cloister the pale, pale light; [rills,
Let the mist-wreaths brood o?cr the valley-bound
And the sky trail its mantle far over the hills.
Plunder the wrecks of the forest, and blind
The waters that picture its ruinous dome.
Wildly, oh wildly, most sorrowful wind !
Chant, like a prophet of terror to come —
Like a Niobe stricken with infinite dread,
Leave the spirit of Beauty alone with her dead.
Throne the white Naiad that filleth her urn
At the fount of the sun ; on the curtain of night
Paint wild Auroras like visions that burn,
Rosy Auroras, like dreams of delight.
Mantle the earth, fold the robe on her breast,
While the sky, like a seraph, hangs over her rest.
A TRUE STORY OF A FAWN.
Dowx from a mountain's craggy brow,
His homeward way the hunter took,
By a path that wound to the vales below,
At the side of a leaping brook.
Long and sore had his journey been,
By the dust that clung to his forest green,
By the stains on his broidered moccasin ;
And over his shoulder his rifle hung,
And an empty horn at his girdle swung.
The eve crept westward : soft and pale
The sunset poured its rosy flood
Slanting over the wooded vale ;
And the weary hunter stood,
Looking down on his cot below,
Watching his children there at play,
Watching the swing on the chestnut bough
Flit to and fro through the twilight gray,
Till the dove's nest rocked on its quivering spray.
Faint and far, through the forest wide,
Came a hunter's voice and a hound's deep cry;
Silence, that slept in the rocky dell,
Scarcely woke, as her sentinel
Cha'lenged the sound from the mountain-side —
Over the valleys the echo died;
And a doe sprang lightly by,
And cleared the path, and panting stood,
With her trembling fawn, by the leaping flood.
She spanned the torrent at a bound,
And swiftly onward, winged by fear,
Fled, as the bay of the deep-mouthed hound
Fell loudly on her ear ;
And pausing by the waters deep,
Too slight to stem their rapid flow,
Too weak to dare the perilous leap,
The fawn sprang wildly to and tro,
Watching the flight of her lithe-limbed doe.
3K8
FRANCES A. AND METTA V. FULLER.
Now slie hung o'er the torrent's edge,
Antl -sobbed and wept as the waves shot by ;
Now she paused on the rocky ledge,
With head erect, and steadfast eye,
Listening to the stag-hound's cry :
Close from the forest the deep bay rang,
Close in the forest the echoes died,
And over the pathway the brown fawn sprang,
And crouched by the hunter's side.
Deep in the thickets the boughs unclasped,
Leaped apart with a crashing sound ;
Under the lithe vines, sure and fast,
Came on the exulting hound —
Yet, baffled, stopped to bay and glare,
Far from the torrent's bound :
For the weeping fawn, still crouching there,
Shrank not,*hor fled, but closer pressed,
And laid her head on the hunter's breast.
FRANCES A. AND MEUTA V. FULLER.
Miss FRANCES A. FULLER, and her sister,
Miss METTA VICTORIA FULLER, have recent
ly published many poems and prose compo
sitions, which have been commended by the
critical editors of the Home Journal, as evin
cing "unquestionable signs of true genius."
The latter has generally written under the
signature of "Singing Sybil.'* The Misses
Fuller are both very young, the oldest having
been bom about the year 1826. They reside
in the pleasant village of Monroeville, in the
northern part of Ohio.
FRANCES A. FULLER.
A RE VERY.
NOT from Fancy's land of wonders
Come the dreams that haunt my brain ;
But from out the Past's dim chambers
Glide along the shadowy train.
On each pale and solemn visage
Is some old remembrance pressed,
Some dear memory that hath lingered
Ever fadeless in my breast.
And as troop on troop of visions
Through Thought's silent halls defile,
Like the ancient ghosts that wander
Through some lone cathedral aisle,
New-born fancies mix and mingle
With the old familiar throng,
And the Past and Present meeting,
Swell the river-tide of song.
Dreams of Present have no power
And no grandeur like the Past:
Glory borrows its enchantment
From the distance it is cast.
But the Present is the wizard
That can break Oblivion's seal,
And the "dead Past's dead," unburied,
By a magic word reveal.
Life has many hidden currents,
Like the cave-streams of the earth,
Flowing deep and strong in secret,
Ne'er betraying bourne or birth.
And the flood in darkness wandering,
With no flower upon its way,
Has its course with richer treasures
Than have met the glare of day.
Light that sometimes shines upon it,
Finds it deep, and pure, and cold ;
And the starry gleam reflected
Leaves no bosom secret told.
In its deepest bed are hidden
Treasures gathered from all life ;
Pearls of thought and gold of feeling,
Moveless in the current's strife.
In life's lively panorama,
Looking for what is to be,
We forget to note the Present,
Ere its changing phantoms flee;
But as clouds by tempests driven
Scatter rain-drops as they fly,
Many golden sands have fallen
Where they must for ever lie.
Of the dreams that throng around me
" In the Spirit's pictured hall,"
Know I none whose shadowy presence
I would choose not to recall.
Come they to me by the midnight,
Come they to me by the day,
Memory's thousand silver pennons
Float above their host alway.
In my heart the plaintive treble
Of the broken notes of song
Make no discord in the music,
As it flows in waves along :
For the spirit of my dreaming
Sings me all the missing notes;
And the strain, to you so broken,
Perfect to my hearing floats.
FRANCES A. AND METTA V. FULLER.
369
THE OLD MAN'S FAVORITE
Do you ask where she has fled —
Fanny, with the laughing eyes'!
Should I tell you " She is dead,"
You would mimic tears and sighs,
And affect a sad surprise.
Yester-week, when you were here,
She was sitting on your knee,
Whispering stories in your car
With an air of mystery,
And a roguish glance at me.
Fanny's heart was always light —
Light and free as plumed bird ;
When she glanced within our sight,
Or her merry voice we heard,
Music in our hearts was stirred.
Do you ask where Fanny hides?
I will tell you by-and-by ;
Look you where the river glides,
In whose depths the shadows lie
Mingled of the earth and sky :
Fanny always loved that spot ;
There her favorite flowers grew —
Violet, forget-me-not,
And the iris gold and blue,
With its pearly beads of dew.
Oft on the old rustic bridge,
Made of supple boughs entwined,
Hanging from each margin's ridge
Like a hammock in the wind,
Fanny fearlessly reclined.
And she's told me, while her eyes
Filled with tears of childish bliss,
That she could see paradise
From her rocking resting-place,
Mirrored in the river's face.
That she saw the tall trees wave,
Bright-winged birds among their bowers.
And a river that did lave
Banks o'ergrown with fairest flowers,
And a sky more blue than ours.
Then she asked, with such a smile
As an angel-face might wear,
If she watched a long, long while,
She could see her mother there,
Walking in the groves so fair.
When, to soothe the child, I said
She should see mamma in heaven,
To that frail old bridge she sped
As if wings to her were given;
And — but look! you see 'tis riven!
Ha ! you start — your looks are wild '
Calm yourself, old man, I pray ;
Fanny was an angel-child,
And 'tis well she's gone away
To her paradise so gay.
METTA VICTORIA FULLER.
THE POSTBOY'S SONG.
THE night is dark and the way is long,
And the clouds are flying fast,
The night-wind sings a dreary song,
And the trees creak in the blast ;
The moon is down in the tossing sea,
And the stars shed not a ray ;
The lightning flashes frightfully,
But I must on my way.
Full many a hundred times have I
Gone o'er it in the dark,
Till my faithful steeds can well descry
Each long familiar mark :
Withal, should peril come to-night,
God have us in his care !
For without help and without light,
The boldest may beware.
Like a shuttle thrown by the hand of Fate,
Forward and back I go,
Bearing a thread to the desolate
To darken their web of wo ;
And a brighter thread to the glad of heart,
And a mingled one to all,
But the dark and the light I can not part,
Nor alter their hues at all.
On, on my steeds ! the lightning's flash
An instant gilds our way —
But steady ! by that fearful crash
The heavens seemed rent away !
Soho ! now comes the blast anew,
And a pelting flood of rain :
Steady — a sea seems bursting through
A rift in some upper main !
'Tis a terrible night — a dreary hour-
Yet who will remember to pray,
That the care of the storm-controlling Power
May be over the postboy's way !
The wayward wanderer from his home,
The sailor upon the sea,
Have prayers to bless them where they roam —
Who thinketh to pray for me ?
But the storm abates — uprides the moon
Like a ship upon the sea :
Now on, my steeds ! this glorious moon
Of a night so dark shall be
A scene for us. Toss high your heads,
And cheerily speed away :
We shall startle the sleepers in their beds
Before the dawn of day !
Like a shuttle thrown by the hand of Fate
Forward and back I go,
Bearing a thread to the desolate
To darken their web of wo —
And a brighter thread to the glad of heart.
And a mingled one for all :
But the dark and the light I can not pait.
Nor alter their hues at all.
FRANCES A. AND METTA
FULLER.
MIDNIGHT.
OXE by one, in slow succession,
The twelve hours have floated by,
Circling, in a still procession,
Round a glittering throne on nigh;
Handmaids to the solemn midnight,
As she walketh up the sky.
With a motion slow and peerless,
Up she glideth through the air,
Mutely perfect, smileless, tearless,
Hushed, and wonderfu ly fair —
Pausing, in her quiet splendor,
Where her twelve attendants are.
All the stars their brows uncover,
All the breezes die away,
All the hours which round her hover,
Stand in dim and mute array ;
For the Midnight, pure and placid,
Knee'eth on her throne to pray.
Grand, bevond the power of telling,
Is the Midnight in her prayer —
All sublimity has dwelling
On her brow, serenely fair;
Brighter than the crown of jewels
Bound upon her raven hair.
She is asking for a b'essing
On the earth that dreams below —
And the leaves, their boughs caressing,
Cease their waving to and fro,
And the murmuring, trilling streamlet
Seems to sing more soft and slow.
Her pure eyes are upward beaming,
And her pale hands folded lie :
Oh, how beautiful this seeming
Of the queen of a 1 tbe sky,
Meekly asking, mid her glory,
From the greater power on hign.
In her dim and holy presence
The still world has grown more still,
And soft silence's subtle essence
Seems the breathless air to fill,
Till the hushed heart of creation
Scarcely dares with awe to thrill.
In serene, subduing sp'endor,
When her time of prayer has flown,
Through the circle that attend her
She descendeth from her throne —
Gliding westward from the zenith,
As they follow one by one.
All the stars their faces cover,
All the flowers droop with tears,
And the breezes round them hover,
With a whispered tale of fears,
As the Midnight queen retireth,
And the king of day appears.
Were I but a star in heaven,
Or a little flower, alone,
I would worship, every even,
The sweet Midnight on her throne;
l'*it a worship yet more perfect
the living spirit known.
THE SILENT SHIP.
WE were sitting in the starlight,
By the gliding river's side —
He, a spirit pure and earnest,
I, his sacred spirit-bride —
Sitting in the ho'y starlight
Fal ing from the jewelled sky,
O'er the water just beneath us,
Flowing bright and silent by.
There was something dim and dreamy
And so so'emn in the air,
And the earth was lying sweetly
In her slumber still and fair;
And her breath had grown so quiel,
That a fold it did not stir
Of the green luxurious curtains,
Drooping graceful over her.
Silent dew and silent starlight,
Silent earth and silent sky —
All was hushed save one faint murmur
Of the river flowing by —
And one low, dear tone of music,
Whispering in my thrilling ear
Words so dreamlike in their beauty,
That my soul could on'y hear — •
Words so eloquent and gentle,
That I never may forget,
They are ringing in sweet melody.
Within my spirit yet !
In the dim, delicious silence,
Even the water fell asleep,
Looking bright and pure and placid,
And immeasurably deep.
And subdued by this strange beauty,
The communer by my side
Hushed his spiritual revealings,
And sat voiceless by his bride.
How beautiful this stillness —
This intense yet softened rest !
A perfect sense of happiness
Thrilled deep within each breast.
When as we watched the trembling
Of the starlight on the stream,
From out the shadow of a curve,
All noiseless as a dream,
All slowly, softly, silently,
All spirit-like and clear,
Gliding through gently parting waves,
We saw a ship appear.
We hushed our breath, we hushed our hearts:
No echo of a sound
Came in, through the dim loveliness,
The solemn air around.
We gazed upon the silent ship —
No sign of life was there —
Yet on it glided gracefully,
All tall and straight and fair !
We saw the ripples break away
And lose themselves in light,
As gently but unwaveringly
It stoie upon our sight ;
FRANCES A. AND METTA V. FULLER.
371
We saw each slender spar and mast
Defined against the sky,
As slowly, softly, silently,
It phantom-like went by.
A feeling of sublimity,
Which could riot be expressed,
Sank heavy through the breathless hush
Upon each throbless breast —
A sense of something beautiful,
Yet almost to be feared,
As slowly, softly, silently,
The strange ship disappeared.
" Sybil !" was breathed upon my ear,
In one low, thrilling tone,
As I felt the clasping of a hand
Grow tighter on my own :
It was enough — within our souls
Each felt that ship to be
An emblem of our spirit-love,
Our mingled destiny.
It seemed so like a hallowed spell,
So like a lovely dream,
With lingering steps we turned away
From the star-lighted stream :
Its beauty was so strange and wild,
And inexpressible,
That after many days had passed
We found no words to tell
Our thoughts of dreamy loveliness,
And the certainty it gave
That thus our still, deep spirit-love
Should glide upon life's wave.
Clouds now are o'er our silent ship,
And not one starry gleam
Falls softly through the shadows
That dim life's troubled stream !
There are storms and clouds and darkness,
But I tremble not with fear,
For our ship will glide unshaken on
Till the stars again appear.
Such thoughts as these that silent ship
Within our souls awoke,
Are prophecies too sure and deep
To be by darkness broke ;
And whether there be storms or not,
Our spirits linked must be,
Till our bark is moored in safety
In the far Eternity.
THE SPIRIT OF MY SONG.
TELL me, have you ever met her —
Met the spirit of my song 1
Have her wavelike footsteps glided
Through the city's worldly throng 1
You will know her by a wreath,
Woven all of starry light,
That is lying mid her hair —
Braided hair as dark as night.
A short band of radiant summers
Is upon her forehead laid,
Twining half in golden sunlight,
Sleeping half in dreamy shade :
Five white fingers clasp a lyre,
Five its silvery strings awake,
And bewildering to the soul
Is the music that they make.
Though her glances sleep like shadows
'Neath each falling, silken lash,
Yet, at aught that wakes resentment,
They magnificently flash.
Though you loved such dewy dream-light,
And such glance of sweet surprise,
You could never bear the scorn
Of those proud and brilliant eyes.
There 's a sweet and winning cunning
In her bright lip's crimson hue,
And a flitting tint of roses
From her soft cheek gleaming through •
Do you think that you have met her ? —
She is young and pure and fair,
And she wears a wreath of starlight
In her braided, ebon hair.
Often at her feet I'm sitting,
With my head upon her knee,
While she tells me dreams of beauty
In low words of melody ;
And, when my unskilful fingers
Strive her silvery lyre to wake,
She will smooth my tresses, smiling
At the discord which I make.
But of late days I have missed her--
The bright being of my love —
And perchance she's stolen pinions
And has floated up above.
Tell me, have you ever met her —
Met the spirit of my song — •
Have her wavelike footsteps glided
Through the city's worldly throng ]
ALICE AND PHCEBE CAREY.
AMONG the younger American poets there
are few whom we regard with more inter
est, or whose writings inspire us with more
hopeful anticipations, than these two sisters,
who were born in a quiet and pleasant dis
trict in the vicinity of Cincinnati, where they
have always resided, and most of the time
in portionless and unprotected orphanage.
Their education has been limited by the
meagre and infrequent advantages of an ob
scure country school, from which they were
removed altogether at a very early age ; and
with neither books nor literary friends to
guide or encourage them, and in circum
stances which would have chilled and with
ered common natures, they "have been and
still are, humble" but most acceptable " wor
shippers in the glorious lernple of song."
ALICE and PHCEBE CAREY have but very re
cently become known at all in the literary
world. It is but two or three years since I
first saw the name of either of them, in a
western newspaper, and of nearly a hundred
of the poems which are now before me,
probably not one has been written more than
that time. " We write," observes Alice Ca
rey, in a letter which I regret that I may not
copy here entire, that the reader's affection
might be kindled with his admiration, " we
write with much facility, often producing
two or three poems in a day, and never elab
orate. We have printed, exclusive of our
early productions, some three hundred and
fifty, which those in your possession fairly
represent." And these are the fruits of no
literary leisure, but the mere pastimes of
lives that are spent in prosaic duties, light
ened and made grateful only by the presence
of the muse.
In the west, song gushes and flows, like
the springs and rivers, more imperially than
elsewhere, as they will believe who study
her journals, or who read these effusions and
those of Amelia Welby, the authors of The
Wife of Leon, and other young poets, whose
minds seem to be elevated, by the glorious
nature there, into the atmosphere where all
thought takes a shape of beauty and harmo
ny. A delicious play of fancy distinguishes
much of the finest poetry of the sex ; but
Alice Carey evinces in many poems a genu
ine imagination and a creative energy that
challenges peculiar praise. We have per
haps no other author, so young, in whom the
poetical faculty is so largely deyeloped. Her
sister writes with vigor, and a hopeful and
genial spirit, and there are many felicities
of expression, particularly in her later pieces.
She refers more than Alice to the common
experience, and has perhaps a deeper sym
pathy with that philosophy and those move
ments of the day, which look for a nearer
approach to equality, in culture, fortune, and
social relations.
ALICE CAREY.
(Born 1820-Died 1871.)
THE HANDMAID.
WHY rests a shadow on her woman's heart ?
In life's more girlish hours it was not so ;
111 hath she learned to hide with harmless art
The soundings of the plummet-line of wo !
Oh, what a world of tenderness looks through
The melting sapphire of her mournful eyes :
Less softly moist are violets full of dew,
And the delicious color of the skies.
Serenely amid worship doth she move,
Counting its passionate tenderness as dross;
And tempering the pleadings of earth's love,
In the still, solemn shadows of the cross.
It is not that her heart is cold or vain,
That thus she moves through many worshippers ;
No step is lighter by the couch of pain,
No hand on fever's brow lies soft as hers.
From the loose flowing of her amber hair
The summer flowers we long ago unknit,
As something between joyance and despair
Came in the chamber of her soul to sit.
In her white cheek the crimson burns as faint
As red doth in some cold star's chastened
beam ;
The tender meekness of the pitying saint
Lends all her life the beauty of a dream.
Thus doth she move among us day by day,
Loving and loved — but passion can not move
The young heart that hath wrapped itself away
In the soft mantle of a Savior's love.
372
ALICE AND PHCEBE CAREY.
.'373
HYMN OF THE TRUE MAN.
PKACK to the True Man's ashes ! Weep for those
Whose days in old delusions have grown dim ;
Such lives as his are triumphs, and their close
An immortality : weep not for him.
As feathers wafted from the eagle's wings
Lie bright among the rocks they can not warm,
So lie the flowery lays that Genius brings,
In the cold turf that wraps his honored form.
A practical rebuker of vain strife,
Bolder in deeds than words, from beardless youth
To the white hairs of age, he made his life
A beautiful consecration to the Truth.
Virtue, neglected long, and trampled down,
Grew stronger in the echo of his name ;
And, shrinking self-condemned beneath his frown,
1 he cheek of harlotry grew red with shame.
Serene with conscious peace, he strewed his way
With sweet humanities, the growth of love ;
Shaping to right his actions, day by day,
Fai.hful to this world and to that above.
The ghosts of blind belief and hideous crime.
Of spirit-broken loves, and hopes betrayed,
That flit among the broken walls of Time,
Are by the True Man's exorcisms laid.
Blest in his life, who to himself is true,
And blest his death — for memory, when he dies,
Comes, with a lover's eloquence, to renew
Our faith in manhood's upward tendencies.
Weep for the self-abased, and for the slave,
And for God's children darkened with the smoke
Of the red altar — not for him whose grave
Is greener than the misletoe of the oak.
PALESTINE.
inspiration ! shadowing my heart
Like a sweet thing of beauty — could I see
Tabor and Carmel ere I hence depart,
And tread the quiet vales of Galilee,
And look from Herrnon with its dew and flowers,
Upon the broken walls and mossy towers,
O'er which the Son of man in sadness wept,
The golden promise of my life were kept.
Alas ! the beauteous cities, crowned with flowers,
And robed with royalty ! no more in thee,
Fretted with go den pinnacles and towers,
They sit in haughty beauty by the sea :
Shadows of rocks, precipitate and dark,
Re*t stili and heavy where they found a grave ;
There glides no more the humble fisher's bark,
And the wild heron drinks not of the wave.
But still the silvery willows fringe the rills,
Judea's shepherd watches still his fold;
And round about Jerusalem the hills
Stand in their solemn grandeur as of old ;
And Sharon's roses still as sweetly bloom
As when the apostles, in the days gone by,
Rolled back the shadows from the dreary tomb,
And brought to light Life's Immortality.
| The East has lain down many a beauteous bride,
In the dim silence of the sepulchre,
Whose names are shrined in storv, but beside
Their lives no sign to tell they ever were.
The imperial fortresses of old renown — [now '
Rome, Carthage, Thebes — alas ! where are they
In the dim distance lost and crumbled down ;
The glory that was of them, from her brow
Took of the wreath in centuries gone by,
And walked the Path of Shadows silently.
But Palestine ! what hopes are born of thee —
I can not paint their beauty, hopes that rise,
Sinking this perishing mortality
To the bright, deathless glories of the skies :
Where the sweet Babe of Bethlehem was born —
Love's mission finished there in Calvary's gloom 4
There blazed the glories of the rising morn,
And Death lay gasping there at Jesus' tomb !
OLD STORIES.
No beautiful star will twinkle
To-night through my window-pane,
As I list to the mournful falling
Of the leaves and the autumn rain.
High up in his leafy covert
The squirrel a shelter hath ;
And the tall grass hides the rabbit,
Asleep in the churchyard path.
On the hills is a voice of wailing
For the pale dead flowers again,
That sounds like the heavy trailing
Of robes in a funeral train.
Oh, if there were one who loved me —
A kindly and gray-haired sire,
To sit and rehearse old stories
To-night by my cabin fire :
The winds as they would might rattle
The boughs of the ancient trees —
In the tale of a stirring battle
My heart would forget all these.
Or if by the embers dying
We talked of the past, the while,
I should see bright spirits flying
From the pyramids and the Nile.
Echoes from harps long silent
Would troop through the aisles of time,
And rest on the soul like sunshine,
If we talked of the bards sublime.
But hark ! did a phantom call me,
Or was it the wind went by ?
Wild are mv thoughts and restless,
But they have no power to fly.
In place of the cricket humming,
And the moth by the candle's light,
I hear but the deathwatch drumming
I've heard it the livelong night.
Oh for a friend who loved me —
Oh for a gray-haired sire,
To sit with a quaint old story,
To-night by my cabin fire.
3?4
ALICE AND PHCEBE CAREY.
PICTURES OF MEMORY.
AMONG the beautiful pictures
That hang (in Memory's wall,
Is one of a dim old forest,
That seemeth best of all :
Not for its gnarled oaks olden,
Dark with the mist etoe ;
Not for the violets golden
That sprinkle the vale be'.ow ;
Not for the milk-white lilies,
That lead from the fragrant hedge,
Coquetting all day with the sunbeams,
And stealing their golden edge ;
Not for the vines on the up' and
Where the bright red berries rest,
Nor the pinks, nor the pale, sweet cowslip,
It seemeth to me the best.
I once had a little brother,
With eyes that were dark and deep —
In the lap of that old dim forest
He lieth in peace as'eep:
Light as the down of the thistle,
Free as the winds that blow,
We roved there the beautiful summers,
The summers of long ago;
But his feet on the hills grew weary,
And, one of the autumn eves,
I made for my litt'e brother
A bed of the yellow leaves.
Sweetly his pale arms folded
My neck in a meek embrace,
As the light of immortal beauty
Silently covered his face :
And when the arrows of sunset
Lodged in the tree-tops bright,
He fell, in his saint-like beauty,
Asleep by the gates of light.
Therefore, of all the pictures
That hang on Memory's wall,
The one of the dim old forest
Seemeth the best of all.
THE TWO MISSIONARIES.
Ix the pyramid's heavy shadows,
Aiitl by the Nile's deep flood,
They leaned on the arm of Jesus,
And preached to the multitude:
Where only the ostrich and parrot
Went by on the burning sands,
They bni'ded to God an altar,
Lifting up holy hands.
But even while kneeling lowly
At the foot of the cross to pray,
Eternity's shadows slowly
Stole over their pilgrim way :
And one, with the journey weary,
And faint with the spirit's strife,
Fell sweetly asleep in Jesus,
Hard by the gates of life.
Oh, not in Gethsemane's garden,
And not by Genesareth's wave,
The light, like a golden mantle,
O'erspreadeth his lowly grave ;
But the bird of the burning desert
Goes by with a noiseless tread,
And the tent of the rest'. ess Arab
Is silently near him spread.
Oh, could we remember only,
Who shrink from the lightest ill,
His sorrows, who, bruised and lonely,
Wrought on in the vineyard still —
Surely the tale of sorrow
Would fall on the mourner's breast,
Hushing, like oil on the waters,
The troubled wave to rest.
VISIONS OF LIGHT.
THE moon is rising in beauty,
The sky is solemn and bright,
And the waters are singing like lovers
That walk in the valleys at night.
Like the towers of an ancient city,
That darken against the sky,
Seems the blue 'mist of the river
O'er the hill-tops far and high.
I see through the gathering darkness
The spire of the village church,
And the pale white tombs, half hidden
By the tasselled willow and birch.
Vain is the golden drifting
Of morning light on the hill ;
No white hands open the windows
Of those chambers low and still.
But their dwellers were all my kindred,
Whatever their lives might be,
And their sufferings and achievements
Have recorded lessons for me.
Not one of the countless voyagers
Of life's mysterious main,
Has laid down his burden of sorrows,
Who hath lived and loved in vain.
From the bards of the elder ages
Fragments of song float by,
Like flowers in the streams of summer,
Or stars in the midnight sky.
Some plumes in the dust are scattered,
Where the eagles of Persia flew,
And wisdom is reaped from the furrows
The plough of the Roman drew.
From the white tents of the crusaders
The phantoms of glory are gone,
But the zeal of the barefooted hermit
In humanity's heart lives on.
Oh, sweet as the bell of the sabbath
In the tower of the village church,
Or the fall of the yellow moonbeams
In the tasselled willow and birch — •
Comes a thought of the blessed issues
That shall follow our social strife,
When the spirit of love maketh perfect
The beautiful mission of life :
For visions of light are gathered
In the sunshine of flowery nooks,
Like the shades of the ghostly Fathers
In their twilight cells of books !
ALICE AND PHOEBE CAREY.
375
HELVA.
HKR white hands full of mountain flowers,
Down by the rough rocks and the sea,
Helva. the raven-tressed, for hours
Hath gazed forth earnestly.
Unconscious that the salt spray flecks
The ebon beauty of her hair —
What vision is it she expects ]
So meekly lingering there.
Is it to see the sea fog lift
From the broad bases of the hills,
Or the red moonlight's golden drift,
That her soft bosom thrills ]
Or yet to see the starrv hours
Their silver network round her throw,
That 'neath the white hands, full of flowers,
Her heart heaves to and fro 1
Why strains so far the aching eye 1
Kind nature wears to-night no frown,
' And the still beauty of the sky
Keeps the mad ocean down.
Why are those damp and heavy locks
Put back, the faintest sound to win 1
Ah ! where the beacon lights the rocks,
A ship is riding in !
Who conies forth to the vessel's side,
Leaning upon the manly arm
Of one who wraps with tender pride
The mantle round her form ]
Oh Helva, watcher of lone hours,
May God in mercy give thee aid !
Thy cheek is whiter than thy flowers —
Thy woman's heart betrayed !
THE TIME TO BE.
I SIT where the leaves of the maple,
And the gnarled and knotted gum,
Are circling and drifting around me,
And think of the time to come.
For the human heart is the mirror
Of the things that are near and far;
Like the wave that reflects in its bosom
The flower and the distant star.
And beautiful to my vision
Is the time it prophetically sees,
As was once to the monarch of Persia
The gem of the Cycladrs.
As change is the order of Nature,
And beauty springs from decay,
So in its destined season
The false for the true makes way.
The darkening power of evil,
And discordant jars and crime,
Are the cry preparing the wilderness
For the flower and the harvest-time.
Though doublings and weak misgivings
May rise to the soul's alarm,
Like the ghosts of the heretic burners,
In the province of bold Reform.
And now, as ihe summer is fading,
And the cold c'ouds full of rain,
And the net in the fields of stubble
And the briars, is spread in vain —
I catch, through the mists of life's river,
A glimpse of the time to be,
When the chain from the bondman rusted
Shall leave him erect and free —
On the solid and broad foundation,
A common humanity's riglrt,
To cover his branded shoulder
With the garment of love from sight.
TO LUCY.
THE leaves are rustling mournfully,
The yellow leaves and sere ;
For Winter with his naked arms
And chilling breath is here:
The rills that all the autumn-time
Went singing to the sea,
Are waiting in their icy chains
For Spring to set them free ;
No bird is heard the live-long day
Upon its mates to call,
And coldly and capriciously
The slanting sunbeams fall.
There is a shadow on my heart
I can not fling aside —
Sweet sister of my soul, with thee
Hope's brightest roses died !
I'm thinking of the pleasant hours
That vanished long ago,
When summer was the goldenest,
And all things caught its glow :
I'm thinking where the violets
In fragrant beauty lay,
Of the buttercups and primroses
That blossomed in our way.
I see the willow, and the spring
O'ergrown with purple sedge ;
The lilies and the scarlet pinks
That grew along the hedge ;
The meadow, where the elm tree threxv
Its shadows dark and wide,
And, sister, flowers in beauty grew
And perished side by side :
O'er the accustomed vale arid hill
Now Winter's robe is spread,
The beetle and the moth are still,
And all the flowers are dead.
I mourn for thee, sweet sister,
When the wintry hours are here,
But when the days grow long and bright.
And skies are blue and clear —
Oh, when the Summer's banquet
Among the flowers is spread,
My spirit is most sorrowful
That thou art with the dead :
We laid thee in thy narrow bed,
When autumn winds were high —
Thy life had taught us how to live.
And then we learned to die.
376
ALICE AND PHGEBE CAREY.
A LEGEND OF ST. MARY'S.
ONE night, when bitterer winds than ours,
On hill-sides and in valleys low,
Built sepulchres for the dead flowers,
And buried them in sheets of snow —
When over ledges, dark and cold,
The sweet moon, rising high and higher,
Tipped with a dimly burning god
St. Mary's old cathedral spire.
The lamp of the confessional,
(God grant it did not burn in vain,)
After the solemn midnight bell,
Streamed redly through the lattice-pane.
And kneeling at the father's feet,
Whose long and venerable hairs,
Now whiter than the mountain sleet,
Could not have numbered half his prayers,
Was one — I can not picture true
The cherub beauty of his guise ;
Lilies, and waves of deepest blue,
WTere something like his hands and eyes !
Like yellow mosses on the rocks,
Dashed with the ocean's milk-white spray,
The softness of his golden looks
About his neck and forehead lay.
Father, thy tresses, silver-sleet.
Ne'er swept above a form so fair ;
Surely the flowers beneath his feet
Have been a rosary of prayer !
We know not, and we can not know,
Why swam those rneek b.ue eyes with tears ;
But surely guilt, or guiltless wo,
Had bowed him earthward more than years.
All the long summer that was gone,
A cottage maid, the village pride,
Fainter and fainter smiles had worn,
And on that very night she died !
As soft the yellow moonbeams streamed
Across her bosom, snowy fair,
She said (the watchers thought she dreamed)
'T is like the shadow of his hair !
And they could hear, who nearest came,
The cross to sign and hope to lend,
The murmur of another name
Than that of mother, brother, friend.
An h/nir — and St. Mary's spires,
Like spikes of flame, no longer glow —
No longer the confessional fires
Shine redly on the drifted snow.
An hour — and the saints had claimed
That cottage maid, the village pride ;
And he, whose name in death she named,
Was darkly weeping by her hide.
White as a spray-wreath lay her brow
Beneath the midnight of her hair,
But all those passionate kisses now
Wake not the faintest crimson there !
Pride, honor, manhood, can not check
The vehemence of love's despair —
JNo soft hand steals about his neck,
Or bathes its beauty in his hair !
Almost upon the cabin walls,
Wherein the sweet young maiden died,
The shadow of a castle falls,
Where for her young lord waits a bride !
With clear blue eyes, and fair brown curls,
In her high turret still she sits ;
But ah, whaf scorn her ripe lip curls —
What shadow to her bosom flits !
From that low cabin tapers flash,
And, by the shimmering light they spread,
She sees beneath its mountain ash,
Leafless, but all with berries red,
Impatient of the unclasped rein,
A courser that should not be there —
The silver whiteness of his mane
Streaming like moonlight on the air !
Oh, Love ! thou art avenged too well —
The young heart, broken and betrayed,
Where thou didst meekly, sweetly dwell,
For all its sufferings is repaid.
Not the proud beauty, nor the frown
Of her who shares the living years,
From her the winding-sheet wraps down,
Can ever buy away the tears !
WATCHING.
TUT smile is sad, Elella,
Too sad for thee to wear,
For scarcely have we yet untwined
The rosebuds from thy hair !
So, dear one, hush thy sobbing,
And let thy tears be dried —
Methinks thou shouldst be happier,
Three little months a bride !
Hark ! how the winds are heaping
The snow-drifts cold and white —
The clouds like spectres cross the sky —
Oh, what a lonesome night !
The hour grows late and later,
I hear the midnight chime :
Thy heart's fond keeper, where is he ]
WThy comes he not ? — 'tis time !
Here make my heart thy pillow,
And, if the hours seem long,
I'll while them with a legend wild,
Or fragment of old song —
Or read, if that will soothe thee,
Some poet's pleasant rhymes :
Oh, I have watched and waited thus,
I can not tell the times !
Hush, hark ! across the neighboring hills
I hear the watchdog bay —
Stir up the fire, and trim the lamp,
I'm sure he's on the way !
Could that have only been the winds,
So like a footstep near ]
No, smile Elella, smile again,
He 's coming home — he 's here !
ALICE AND PHCEBE CAREY.
377
AN EVENING TALE.
COME, thou of the drooping eyelid,
And cheek that is meekly pale,
Give over thy pensive musing
And list to a lonesome tale :
For hearts that are torn and bleeding,
Or heavy as thine, and lone,
May find in another's sorrow
Forgetful ness of their own :
So heap on the blazing fagots
And trim the lamp anew,
And I'll tell you a mournful story —
I would that it were not true !
The bright red clouds of the sunset
On the tops of the mountains lay,
And many and goodly vessels
Were anchored below in the bay —
We saw the walls of the city,
And could hear its vexing din,
As our mules, with their nostrils smoking,
Drew up at a wayside inn :
The hearth was ample and blazing,
For the night was something chill,
But my heart, though I knew not wherefore,
Sank down with a sense of ill.
That night I stood on the terrace
O'erlooking a blossomy vale,
And the gray old walls of a convent
That loomed in the moonlight pale —
Till the lamp of the sweet Madonna
Grew faint as if burning low,
And the midnight bell in the turret
Swung heavily to and fro —
When just as its last sweet music
Came back from the echoing hill,
And the hymn of the ghostly friars
In the fretted aisle grew still —
On a rude bench, hid among olives,
I noted a maiden fair,
Alone, with the night wind playing
In the locks of her raven hair :
Thrice came the sound of her sighing,
And thrice were her red lips pressed
With wild and passionate fervor
To the cross that hung on her breast :
But her bearing was not the bearing
That to saintly soul belongs,
Albeit she chanted the fragments
Of holy and beautiful songs.
'T was the half hour after the midnight,
And, so like that it might be now,
The full moon was meekly climbing
Over the mountain's brow —
When the step of the singing maiden
In the corridor lightly trod,
And I presently saw her kneeling
In prayer to the mother of God !
On the leaves of her golden missal
Darkly her loose locks lay,
As she cried, " Forgive me, sweet Virgin,
And mother of Jesus, I pray !"
When the music was softly melting
From the eloquent lips of morn,
Within the walls of the convent
Those beautiful locks were shorn :
And wherefore the veil was taken
Was never revealed by time,
But Charity sweetly hopeth
For sorrow, and not for crime.
GEORGE BURROUGHS*
OH, dark as the creeping of shadows,
At night, o'er the burial hill,
When the pulse in the stony artery
Of the bosom of earth is still —
When the sky, through its frosty curtain,
Shows the glitter of many a lamp,
Burning in brightness and stillness,
Like the fire of a far-off camp — •
Must have been the thoughts of the martyr,
Of the jeers and the taunting scorn,
And the cunning trap of the gallows,
That waited his feet at morn —
As down in his lonesome dungeon
The hours trooped silent and slow,
Like sentinels through the thick darkness,
Hard by the tents of the foe.
Could he hear the voices of music
That thrilled that deep heart of gloom ]
Or see the pale and still beauty
That sweetly leaned by the tomb "?
Could he note through the cold and thin shadow
That swept through his prison bars,
The white hand of the pure seraph
That beckoned him to the stars !
As, roused to the stony rattle
Of the hangman's open cart,
He smothered, till only God heard it —
The piercing cry of his heart.
Can Christ's mercy wash back to whiteness
The feet his raiment that trod,
Whose soul, from that dark persecution,
Went up to the bosom of God ]
Hath he forgiveness, who shouted,
" Righteously do ye, and well,
To quench in blood, hot and smoking,
This firebrand, which is of hell 1"
Over fields moistened thus darkly
Wave harvests of tolerance now ;
But the tombstones of the old martyrs
Sharpened the share of the plough !
* No purer hearts or more heroic spirits ever perished
at the stake, than some crushed and broken on the wheel
of bigotry during the Puritan Reign of Terror. Among
thern^ I would instance the Rev. George Burroughs, who
prayed with and for his repentant accuser the day previ
ous to his execution, and whose conviction demonstrated
the righteousness of God to the Rev. Cotton Mather. Af
ter his execution, to which he was conveyed in an open
cart, Mr. Burroughs was stripped of his clothing, dragged
by the hangman's rope to a rocky excavation, in which,
beinir thrown and trampled on by the mob. he was
left partly uncovered.
f78
ALICE AND PHCEBE CAREY.
LIGHTS OF GENIUS.
UPHEAVING pillars, on whose tops
The white stars rest like capitals,
Whence every living spark that drops
Kindles and blazes as it falls !
And if the arch-fiend rise to pluck,
Or stoop to crush their beauty down,
A thousand other sparks are struck,
That Glory settles in her crown.
The huge ship, with its brassy share,
Ploughs the blue sea to speed their course,
And veins of iron cleave the air,
To waft them from their burning source !
All, from the insect's tiny wings,
And the small drop of morning dew,
To the wide universe of things,
The light is shining, burning through.
Too deep for our poor thoughts to gauge
Lie their clear sources, bright as truth,
Whence flows upon the locks of age
The beauty of eternal youth.
Think, oh my faltering brother ! think,
If thou wilt try, if thou hast tried,
By all the lights thou hast, to sink
The shaft of an immortal tide !
DEATH'S FERRYMAN.
BOATMAX, thrice I've called thee o'er,
Waiting on life's solemn shore,
Tracing, in the silver sand,
Letters till thy boat should land.
Drifting out alone with thee,
Toward the clime I can not see,
Read to me the strange device
Graven on thy wand of ice.
Push the curls of golden hue
From thy eyes of starlit dew,
And behold me where I stand,
Beckoning thy boat to land.
Where the river mist, so pale,
Trembles like a bridal veil,
O'er yon lowly drooping tree,
One that loves me waits for me.
Hear, sweet boatman, hear my call !
Last year, with the leaflet's fall,
Resting her pale hand in mine,
Ci.ossed she in that boat of thine.
When the corn shall cease to grow,
And the ryefield's silver flow
At the reaper's feet is laid,
Crossing, spake the lovely maid :
Dearest love, another year
Thou shall meet this boatman here
The white fingers of despair
Playiig with his golden hair.
From this silver-sanded shore,
Beckon him to row thee o'er ;
Where yon solemn shadows be,
I shall wait thee — come and see !
There ! the white sails float and flow,
One in heaven and one below ;
And I hear a low voice cry,
Ferryman of Death am I.
SAILOR'S SONG.
HA ! the bird has fled my arrow —
Though the sunshine of its plumes,
Like the summer dew is dropping,
On its native valley blooms;
In the shadow of its parting wing
Shall I sit down and pine,
That it pours its song of beauty
On another heart than mine !
From thy neck, my trusty charger,
I will strip away the rein,
But to crop the flowery prairie
May it never bend again !
With thy hoof of flinty silver,
And thy blue eye shining bright,
Through the red mists of the morning
Speed like a beam of light.
I'm sick of the dull landsmen —
'Tis time, my lads, that we
Were crowding on the canvass,
And standing out to sea !
Ever making from the headlands
Where the wrecker's beacons ride,
Red and deadly, like the shadow
Of the lion's brinded hide ;
And hugging close the islands,
That are belted with the blue,
Where a thousand birds are singing
In the dells of light and dew ;
Time unto our songs the billows
W7ith their dimpled hands shall keep,
As we're ploughing the white furrows
In the bosom of the deep!
In watching the light flashing
Like live sparks from our prow,
With but the bitter kisses
Of the cold surf on my brow,
May my voyage at last be ended,
And my sleep be in the tide,
With the sea-waves clasped around me,
Like the white arms of a bride !
TO THE EVENING ZEPHYR.
I SIT where the wild-bee is humming,
And listen in vain for thy song;
I've waited before for thy coming,
But never, oh, never so long!
How oft with the blue sky above us,
And waves breaking light on the shore,
Thou, knowing they wou'd not reprove us,
Hast kissed me a thousand times o'ei ! ....
Alone in the gathering shadows,
Still waiting, sweet Zephyr, for thee,
I look for the waves of the meadows,
And dimples to dot the blue sea.
The blossoms that waited to greet thee
With heat of the noontide oppressed,
Now flutter so light to meet thee,
Thou'rt coming, I know, from the west
Alas! if thou findest me pouting,
'Tis only my love that alarms;
Forgive, then, I pray thee, my doubting,
And take me once more to thine arms!
ALICE AND PHOEBE CAREY.
MUSINGS BY THREE GRAVES.
THK dappled clouds are broken : bright and clear
Comes up the broad and glorious star of day ;
And night, the shadowy, like a hunted deer,
Flies from the close pursuer fast away.
Now on my ear a murmur faintly swells,
And now it gathers louder and more deep,
As the sweet music of the village bells
Rouses the drowsy rustic from his sleep.
Hark ! there 's a footstep startling up the birds,
And now as softly steals the breeze along,
I hear the sound, and almost catch the words
Of the sweet fragment of a pensive song.
And yonder, in the clover-scented vale —
Her bonnet in her hand, and simply clad —
I see the milkmaid with her flowing pail :
Alas ! what is it makes her song so sad !
In the seclusion of these lowly dells,
What mournful lesson has her bosom learned 1
Is it the memory of sad farewells,
Or faithless love, or friendship unreturned 1
Methinks yon sunburnt swain, with knotted thong,
And rye-straw hat slouched careless on his brow,
Whistled more loudly, passing her along,
To yoke his patient oxen to the plough.
'Tis all in vain : she heeds not, if she hears,
And, sadly musing, separate ways they go :
Oh, who shall tell how many bitter tears
Are mingled in the brightest fount below ]
Poor, simple tenant of another's lands,
Vexed with no dream of heraldic renown ;
No more the earnings of his sinewy hands
Shall make his spirit like the thistle's down.
Smile not, recipient of a happier fate,
And haply better formed life's ills to bear,
If e'er you pause to read the name and date
Of one who died the victim of despair.
Now morn is fully up ; and while the dew
From off her golden locks is brightly shed,
In the deep shadows of the solemn yew
I sit alone and muse above the dead.
Not with the blackbird whistling in the brake,
Nor when the rabbit lightly near them treads,
Shall they from their deep s! umbering awake,
Who lie beneath me in their narrow beds.
Oh, what is life ? at best a narrow bound,
Where each that lives some baffled hope survives :
A search for something, never to be found,
Records the history of the greatest lives !
There is a haven for each weary bark,
A port where they who rest are free from sin ;
But we, like children trembling in the dark,
Drive on and on, afraid to entei in.
Here lies an aged patriarch at rest,
To whom the needy never vainly cried,
Till in this vale, with toil and years oppressed,
His long-sustaining staff was laid aside.
Oft for his country had he fought and bled,
And gladly, when the lamp of life grew dim,
He joined the silent army of the dead —
Then why should tears of sorrow flow for him '
We mourn not for the cornfield's deep'ning gold,
Nor when the sickle on the hills is plied ;
And wherefore should we sorrow for the old
Who perish when life's paths have all been tried !
How oft at noon, beneath the orchard trees,
With brow serene and venerably fair,
I 've seen a little prattler on his knees,
Smoothing with dimpled hand his silver hair.
When music floated on the sunny hills, [drest,
And trees and shrubs with opening flowers were
She meekly put aside life's cup of ills.
And kindly neighbors laid her here to rest.
And ye who loved her, would ye call her back,
Where its deep thirst the soul may never slake;
And sorrow, with her lean and hungry pack,
Pursues through every winding which we take?
W7here lengthened years but teach the bitter truth,
That transient preference does not make a friend ;
That manhood disavows the love of youth,
And riper years of manhood, to the end.
Beneath this narrow heap of mouldering earth,
Hard by the mansions of the old and young,
A wife and mother sleeps, whose humble worth
And quiet virtues poet never sung.
With yonder cabin, half with ivy veiled,
And children by the hand of mercy sent —
And love's sweet star, that never, never paled,
Her bosom knew the fulness of content.
Mocking ambition never came to tear
The finest fibres from her heart away —
The aim of her existence was to bear
The cross in patient meekness day by day.
No hopeless, blind idolater of chance,
The sport and plaything of each wind that blows,
But lilting still by faith a heavenward glance,
She saw the waves of death around her close.
And here her children come with pious tears,
And strew their simple offerings in the sod ;
And learn to tread like her the vale of years,
Beloved of man and reconciled to God.
Now from the village school .the urchins come,
And shout and laughter echo far and wide ;
The blue smoke curls from many a rustic home,
WThere all their simple wants are well supplied
The labored hedger, pausing by the way,
Picks the ripe berries from the gadding vine :
The axe is still, the cattle homeward stray,
And transient glories mark the day's decline.
380
ALICE AND PHCEBE CAREY.
PHGEBE CAREY.
(Born 1825— Died 1871J
THE LOVERS.
THOU marve'.est why so oft her eyes
Fill with the heavy dew of tears —
Have I not to'd thee that there lies
A shadow darkly on her years ]
Life was to her one sunny whole,
Made up of visions fancy wove,
Till that the waters of her soul
Were troubled by the touch of love.
I knew when first the sudden pause
Upon her spirit's sunshine fell —
Alas ! I little guessed the cause,
'T was hidden in her heart so well :
Our lives since early infancy
Had flowed as rills together flow,
And now to hide her thought from me
Was bitterer than to tell its wo.
One night, when clouds with anguish black
A tempest in her bosom woke,
She crushed the bitter tear-drops back,
And told me that her heart was broke !
I learned it when the autumn hours
With wailing winds around us sighed —
'T was summer when her love's young flowers
Burst into glorious life, and died :
No — now I can remember well,
!Twas the soft month of sun and shower;
A thousand times I've heard her tell
The season, and the very hour:
For now, whene'er the tear-drops start,
As if to ease its throbbing pain,
She leans her head upon my heart
And tells the very tale again.
'Tis something of a moon, that beamed
Upon her weak and trembling form,
And one beside, on whom she leaned,
That scarce had stronger heart or arm —
Of souls united there until
Death the last ties of life shall part,
And a fond kiss whose rapturous thrill
Still vibrates softly in her he-art.
Tt is an era strange, yet sweet,
Which every woman's thought has known,
When first her young heart learns to beat
To the soft music of a tone — -
That era when she first begins
To know, what love alone can teach,
That there are hidden depths within,
Which friendship never yet could reach :
And all earth has of bitter wo,
Is light beside her hopeless doom,
Who sees love's first sweet star below
Fade slowly till it sets in gloom :
There may be heavier grief to move
The heart that mourns an idol dead,
But one who weeps a living love
Has surely little left to dread.
I can not tell why love so true
As theirs, should only end in gloom
Some mystery that I never knew
Was woven darkly with their doom :
I only know their dream was vain,
And that they woke to find it past,
And when by chance they met again,
It was not as they parted last.
His was not faith that lightly dies,
For truth and love as c! early shone
In the blue heaven of his soft eves,
As the dark midnight of her own :
And therefore Heaven alone can tell
W'hat are his living visions now ;
But hers — the eye can read too well
The language written on her brow.
In the soft twilight, dim and sweet,
Once, watching by the lattice pane,
She listened for his coming feet,
For whom she never looked in vain :
Then hope shone brightly on her brow,
That had not learned its after fears —
Alas ! she can not sit there now,
But that her dark eves fill with tears!
And every woodland pathway dim,
And bower of roses cool and sweet,
That speak of vanished days and him,
Are spots forbidden to her feet.
No thought within her bosom stirs,
But wakes some feeling dark and dread:
God keep thee from a doom like hers —
Of living when the hopes are dead !
BEARING LIFE'S BURDENS.
On, there are moments for us here, when, seeing
Life's inequalities, and wo, and care,
The burdens laid upon our mortal being
Seem heavier than the human heart can bear.
For there are ills that come without foreboding,
Lightnings that fall before the thunders roll,
And there are festering cares, that, by corroding,
Eat silently their way into the soul.
And for the evils that our race inherit,
What strength is given us that we may endure ?
Surely the God and Father of our spirit
Sends not afflictions which he can not cure !
No ! there is a Physician, there is healing,
And light that beams upon life's darkest day,
To him whose heart is right with God, revealing
The wisdom and the justice of his way.
Not him who never lifts his thought to Heaven,
Remembering whence his blessings have been sent;
Nor yet to him are strength and wisdom given,
Whose days with profitless scourge and fast are
spent :
But him whose heart is as a temple holy,
Whose prayer in every act of right is said — •
He shall be strong, whether life's ills wear slowly,
Or come like lightning down upon his head :
He who for his own good or for another
Ready to pray, and strive, and labor, stands —
Who loves his God by loving well his brother,
And worships him by keeping his commands.
ALICE AND PHCEBE CAREY.
381
RESOLVES.
I HAVE said I wou'd not meet him —
Have I said the words in vain 1
Sunset burns along the hill-tops,
And I'm waiting here again:
But my promise is not hroken,
Though I stand where once we met ;
When I hear his coming footsteps,
I can fly him even yet.
We have stood here oft when evening
Deepened slowly o'er the plain,
But I must not, dare not, meet him
In the shadows here again ;
For I could not turn away and
Leave that pleading look and tone,
And the sorrow of his parting
Would he bitter as my own.
In the dim and distant ether
The first star is shining through,
And another, and another !
Trembles softly in the blue :
Should I linger but one moment
In the shadows where I stand,
I shall see the vine-leaves parted
With a quick, impatient hand.
But I will not wait his coming —
He will surely come once more ;
Though I said I wou'd not mee* him,
I have told him so before ;
And he knows the stars of evening
See me standing here again —
Oh, he surely will not leave me
Now to watch and wait in vain !
'Tis the hour — the time of meeting —
In one moment 'twill be past;
And last night he stood beside me —
Was that blessed time the last 1
I could better bear my sorrow,
Could I live that parting o'er :
Oh, I wish I had not to!d him
That I wou'd not come once more !
Could that have been the night-wind
Moved the branches thus apart ?
Did I hear a coming footstep,
Or the beating of my heart ?
No — I hear him, I can see him,
And my weak resolves are vain :
I will fly, but to his bosom,
And to leave it not again !
LIGHT IN DARKNESS.
DID we think of the light and sunshine,
Of the blessings left us still,
When we sit and ponder darkly
And blindly o'er life's ill,
How should we dispel the shadow?
Of stil' and deep despair,
And lessen the weight of anguish
Which every heart must bear ]
The clouds may rest on the present.
And sorrow on days that are gone,
But no night is so utterly cheerless
That we may not look for the dawn ;
And there is no human being
With so who'lv dark a lot,
But the heart, by turning the picture,
May find some sunny spot :
For, as in the lays of winter,
When the snowdrifts whiten the hill,
Some birds in the air will flutter,
And warble, to cheer us still :
So, if we would hark to the music,
Some hope with a starry wing,
In the days of our darkest sorrow,
Will sit in the heart and sing.
THE WIFE OF BESSIERES.*
THE pathway where the sun went down,
Shone faintly in the western arch,
As tranquil Eve was leading on
Her silent armies in their march :
Bright hosts of onward moving stars
Were in the orient climbing higher,
Where, first among his brethren, Mars
Burned redly as a beam of fire :
In the wide plain that lay below
The dark Bohemian mountain heights,
But lately, from the tents of snow,
Streamed ruddily the camp fire's lights.
But now the grass waves quietly,
The mountains watch that place alone,
And the cool night dews silently
To leaf and flower came stealing down.
Yet in that valley, lone and damp,
A form is gliding to and fro,
And, by the glimmer of her lamp,
I see a mourner's face of wo :
That beacon through the night burns on
The pale face lingering sweet'y nigh,
And fades not when the feet of dawn
Shake out the diamonds from the sky.
'Tis she, whose noble lover died
Ere the red morn of Lutzen shone —
The duke of Istria's mournful bride
Still watching by his tomb alone.
Vain weeper, wherefore linger on 1
Thy locks with heavy dews are wet —
The feet that to the dead go down,
Ne'er came to meet the faithful yet.
Oh, woman's love hath fondly turned
To those in dungeons, deep and dark,
And beacon fires have steadily burned
To light a long-expected bark :
But what affection, true and tried,
Which death can shake not, nor remove,
Is hers, who feeds the lamp beside
The sepulchre of buried love.
* The king of Saxony erected a monument over Ben-
Sieres, where ht; fell, and over it his disconsolate wid!<vi'
kept a lamp burning, ni^ht and day, for a year.
382
ALICE AND PHCEBE CAREY.
THE FOLLOWERS OF CHRIST.
Wn AT were Thy teachings ? thou who hadst not
In all this weary earth to lay thy head ; [where
Thou who wert made the sins of men to bear,
And break with publicans thy daily bread !
Turning from Nazareth, the despised, aside,
And dwelling in the cities by the sea,
What were thy words to those who sat and dried
Their nets upon the rocks of Galilee"?
Didst thou not teach thy followers here below,
Patience, long-sufferintr, charitv, and love ;
To be forgiving, and to anger s'ow,
And perfect, like our blessed Lord above?
And who were they, the called and chosen then,
Through a'l the world, teaching tliv truth, to go ?
Were they the ru'ers, and the chiefest men,
The teachers in the synagogue? Not so!
Makers of tents, and fishers bv the sea,
These on'y left their all to follow thee.
And even of the twelve whom thou didst name
Apostles of thy ho'y word to be,
One was a devil; and the one who came
With loudest boasts of faith and constancy,
He was the first thy warning who forgot,
And said, with curses, that he knew thee not!
Yet were there some who in thy sorrows were
To thee even as a brother and a friend,
And women, seeking out the sepulchre,
Were true and faithful even to the end :
And some there were who kept the living faith
Through persecution even unto death
But, Savior, since that dark and awful day
When the dread temple's veil was rent in twain,
And while the noontide brightness fled away,
The »aping earth gave up her dead again ;
Tracing the many generations down.
Who have professed to love thy holy ways,
Through the long centuries of the world's renown,
And through the terrors of her darker days
Where are thy followers, and what deeds of love
Their deep devotion to thy precepts prove ?
Turn to the time when o'er the green hills came
Peter the Hermit, from the cloister's gloom,
Telling his followers in the Savior's name
To arm and battle for the sacred tomb ;
Not with the Christian armor — perfect faith,
And love which purifies the soul from dross
But holding in one hand the sword of death,
And in the other lifting up the cross,
He roused the sleeping nations up to feel
All the blind ardor of unholy zeal!
With the bright banner of the cross unfurled,
And chanting sacred hymns, they marched, and
Pliey made a pandemonium of the world, ("yet
More dark than that whore fallen angels met:
The singing of their bugles could not drown
The bitter curses of the hunted down !
Richard, the lion-hearted, bravo in war,
Tancred, and Godfrey, of the fearless 'band,
fhough oarth'y fame had spread their names afar,
What were they but the scourges of the land ?
And worse than those, wore men whose touch would
I1 Dilution, vowed to lives of sanctity ! n)e
And in thy name did men in other days
Construct the inquisition's gloomy cell,
And kindle persecution to a blaze,
Likost of all things to the fires of hell !
Ridley and Latimer — I hear their song
In calling up each martyr's glorious name,
And Cranmer, with the praises on his tongue
When his red hand dropped down amid the flame!
Merciful God ! and have these things been done,
And in the name of thy most holy Son ?
Turning from other lands grown old in crime,
To this, where Freedom's root is deeply set,
Surely no stain upon its folds sublime
Dims the escutcheon of our glory yet !
Hush ! came there not. a sound upon the air
Like captives moaning from their native shore —
Woman's deep wail of passionate despair
For home and kindred seen on earth no morr '
Yes, standing in the market-place I see
Our weaker brethren coldly bought and sold,
To be in hopeless, dull captivity,
Driven forth to toil like cattle from the fold :
And hark! the lash, and the despairing cry
Of the strong man in perilous agony !
And near me I can hear the heavy sound
Of the dull hammer borne upon the air:
Is a new city rising from the ground ?
What hath the artisan constructed there ?
'Tis not a palace, nor an humble shed ;
'Tis not a holy temple reared by hands —
No ! — lifting up its dark and bloody head
Right in the face of Heaven, the scaffold stands
And men, regardless of « Thou shalt not kill,"
That plainest lesson in the Book of Light,
Even from the very altars tell us still,
That evil sanctioned by the law is right !
And preach, in tones of eloquence sublime,
To teach mankind that murder is not crime !
And is there nothing to redeem mankind ? —
No heart that keeps the love of God within ?
Is the whole world degraded, weak, and blind,
And darkened by the leprous scales of sin?
No, we will hope that some, in meekness sweet,
Still sit, with trusting Mary, at thy feet.
For there are men of God, who faithful stand
On the far ramparts of our Zion's wall,
Planting the cross of Jesus in some land
That never listened to salvation's call.
And there are some, led by philanthropy,
Men of the feeling heart and daring mind,
Who fain would set the hopeless free,
And raise the weak and fallen of mankind.
And there are many in life's humblest way,
Who tread like angels on a path of light,
Who warn the sinful when they go astray,
And point the erring to the way of right ;
And the meek beauty of such lives will teach
.More than the eloquence of man can preach.
And hVss-d Savior! by thy life of trial,
And by thy death, to free the world from sin,
And by the hope that man, though weak and vile,
Hath something of divinity within —
Still will we trust, though sin and crime be met,
To see thy holy precepts triumph yet!
ALICE AND PHCEBE CAREY.
SYMPATHY.
INT the same beaten channel still have run
The blessed streams of human sympathy ;
An 1 though I know this ever hath been done,
The why and wherefore I could never see :
Why some such sorrow for their griefs have won,
And some, unpitied, bear their misery,
Are mysteries, which, thinking o'er and o'er,
Has left me nothing wiser than before.
"What hitter tears of agony have flowed
O'er the sad pages of some o'd romance ! [glowed,
How Beauty's cheek beneath those drops has
That dimmed the sparkling lustre of her glance,
And on some lovesick maiden is bestowed,
Or some rejected, hapless knight, perchance,
All her deep sympathies, until her moans
Stifle the nearer sound of living groans !
Oh, the deep sorrow for their sufferings felt, [prove
Where is found something — " better days" — to
What heart above their downfall will not melt,
Wiio in a " higher circle" once could move :
For such, mankind have ever freely dealt
Out the full measure of their pitying love,
Because they witnessed, in their wretchedness,
Their friends grow fewer, and their fortunes less.
But for some humb'e peasant girl's distress,
Some real being left to stem the tide,
Who saw her young heart's wea'th of tenderness
Betrayed, and trampled on, and flung aside —
Who seeks her out, to make her sorrows less 1
What noble lady "o'er her tale hath cried 1
None ! for the records of such humble grief
Obtain not human pity — scarce belief.
And p.s for their distress, who from the first
Have had no fortune and no friends to fail —
Tnose who in poverty were born and nursed :
For such, by men, are placed without the pale
Of sympathy — since they are deemed the worst
Who are the humblest ; and if want assail
And bring them harder toil, 'tis only said
"They have been used to labor for their bread !"
Oh, the unknown, unpitied thousands found
Huddled together, hid from human sight
By fell disease or gnawing famine — bound
To some dim, crowded garret, day and night,
Or in unwholesome cellars under ground,
With scarce a breath of air or ray of light —
Hunger and ra-js, and labor ill repaid :
These are the 'things that ask our tears and aid.
And these ought not to be : it is not well,
Here in this land of Christian liberty,
That honest worth or hopeless want shouM dwell
Unaided by our care and sympathy :
And is it not a burning shame to tell
We have no means to check such misery,
When wealth from out our treasury free y flows,
To wage a deadly warfare with our foes !
It is all wrong : yet men begin to deem
The days of darkest g'oom are nearly done —
A something, like the first daylight beam
That h^ra'ds with the coming of the dawn,
Breaks on the sight. Oh, if it be no dream,
How shall we haste that blessed era on :
For there is need that on men's hearts should fall
A spirit that shall sympathize with all.
SONG OF THK HEART.
THEY may tell for ever of worlds of bloom,
Beyond the skies and beyond the tomb —
Of the sweet repose and the rapture there,
That are not found in a world of care :
But not to me can the present seem
Like a foolish tale or an idle dream.
Oh, I know that the bowers of heaven are fair,
And I know that the waters of life are there ;
But I do not long for their happy flow,
While there burst such fountains of bliss below
And I would not leave, for the rest above,
The faithful bosom of trusting love !
There are angels here : .they are seen the while,
In each love-lit brow and each gentle smile ;
There are seraph voices that meet the ear,
In the kindly tone and the word of cheer ,
And light, such light as they have above,
Beams on us here from the eyes of love !
Yet, when it cometh my time to die,
I would turn from this bright world willing!/ ;
Though, even then, would the thoughts of this
Tinge every dream of that land of bliss :
And I fain would lean on the loved for aid,
Nor walk alone through the vale and shade.
And if 'tis mine, till life's changes end,
To guard the heart of one faithful friend,
Whatever the trials of earth may be,
On the peaceful shore or the restless sea —
In a palace home or the wilderness —
There is heaven for me in a world like this.
THE PRISONER'S LAST NIGHT.
THE last red gold had melted from the sky,
Where the sweet sunset lingered soft and warm,
And starry Night was gathering silently
The jewelled mantle round her regal form ;
While the invisible fingers of the breeze
Shook the young blossoms lightly from the trees.
Yet were their breaking hearts beneath the stars,
Though the hushed earth lay smiling in the light,
And the dull fetters and the prison bars
Saw bitter tears of agony that night,
And heard such burning words of love and truth
As wring the life-drops from the heart c:' youth.
For he, whom men relentless doomed to die,
Parted with one who loved him tiii (ho iast;
With many a vow of faith and constancy
The long, long watches of the night were passed
Till heavi y and slow, the prison door
Swung back, and — to!d them that their hour was O'CT
'T was his last night on earth ! and God alone
Can tell the anguish of that stricken, one,
Fpttered in darkness to the dungeon stone,
384
ALICE AND PHCEBE CAREY.
And doomed to perish with the rising sun :
And she, whose faith through a 1 was vainly true,
Her heart was hroken — and she perished too.
And will this win an erring brother hack
To the sweet paths of pleasantness and peace ?
" Whi e crimes are punished hut hy crimes more
black/'
Will ever wickedness and sorrow cease 1
No ! crime will never fail to scourge the land,
So long as blood is on her ruler's hand.
And oh, how long will hearts in sin and pride
Reject His blessed precepts, who of yore
Taught men forgiveness on the mountain side,
And spoke of love and mercy hy the shore 1
How long will power, with such despotic sway,
Trample unfriended weakness in its way !
Hasten, 0 Lord of light ! that glorious time
When man no more sha'l spurn thy wise command,
Filling the earth with wretchedness and crime,
And making guilt a p'ague-spot on the land :
Hasten the time, that blood no more shall cry
Unceasingly for vengeance to the sky !
MEMOHTES.
" Slie loved me, but she :eft me."
MEMORIES on memories ! to my soul again
There come such dreams of vanished love and bliss
That my wrung heart, though long inured to pain,
Sinks with the fulness of its wretchedness :
Thou, dearer far than a'l the world beside !
Thou, who didst listen to my love's first vow —
Once I had fondly hoped to call thee bride :
Is the dream over 1 comes the awakening now 1
And is this hour of wretchedness and tears
The only guerdon for my wasted years 1
And I did love thee — when by stealth we met
In the sweet evenings of that summer time,
WThose pleasant memory lingers with me yet,
As the remembrance of a better clime
Might haunt a fallen angel. And oh, thou —
Thou who didst turn away and seek to bind
Thy heart from breaking — thou hast felt ere now
A heart like thine o'ermastereth the mind :
Ail'ection's power is stronger than thy will —
Ah, thou didst love me, and thou lovest me still.
My heart cou'd never yet be taught to move
Writh the calm even pulses that it should :
Turning away from those that it should love,
And loving whom it should not, it hath wooed
Beauty forbidden — I may not forget ;
And thou, oh thou canst never cease to feel ;
Hut time, which hath not changed affection yet,
Hath taught at least one lesson — to conceal ;
!So none but thou, who see my smiles, shall know
The silent bleeding of the heart below.
"EQUAL TO EITHER FORTUNE."
" ECIUAT, to either fortune !" This should bo
The motto of the perfect man and true —
Striving to stem the billow fearlessly,
And keeping steadily the right in view,
Whether it he his lot in life to sail
Before an adverse or a prosperous gale.
Man fearlessly his voice for truth should raise,
When truth would force its way in deed or word ;
W'hether for him the popular voice of praise,
Or the cold sneer of unbelief is heard :
Like the First Martyr, when his voice arose
Distinct above the hisses of hi? foes.
" Equal to either fortune," Heaven designs,
Whether his destiny be repose or toil —
Whether the sun upon his palace shines,
Or calls him forth to plant the furrowed soil :
So shall he find life's blessings freely strewn
Around the peasant's cottage as the throne.
Man should dare all things which he knows are right,
And fear to do no act save what is wrong ;
But, guided safely by his inward light,
And with a permanent belief, and strong,
In Him who is our Father and our friend,
He should walk steadfastly unto the end.
Ready to live or die, even in that day
Which man from childhood has been taught to fear,
When, putting off its cumbrous weight of clay,
The spirit enters on a nobler sphere :
And he will be, whose life was rightly passed,
" Equal to either fortune" at the last.
COMING HOME.
How long it seems since first we heard
The cry of " land in sight !"
Our vessel surely never sailed
So slowly till to-night.
Wrhen we discerned the distant hills,
The sun was scarcely set,
And, now the noon of night is passed,
They seem no nearer yet.
Where the blue Rhine reflected back
Each frowning castle wall.
Where, in the forest of the Hartz,
Eternal shadows fall —
Or where the yellow Tiber flowed
By the old hills of Rome —
I never felt such restlessness,
Such longing for our home.
Dost thou remember, oh, my friend,
Wrhen we beheld it last,
How shadows from the setting sun
Upon our cot were cast 1
Three summer-times upon its walls
Have shone for us in vain ;
But oh, we're hastening homeward now,
To leave it not again.
There, as the. last star dropped away
From Night's imperial brow,
Did not our vessel " round the point" ?
The land looks nearer now !
Yes, as the first faint beams of day
Fell on our native shore,
They 're dropping anchor in the bay,
We 're home, we 're home once more !
ALICE AND PHCEBE CAREY.
THE CHRISTIAN WOMAN.
On, beautiful as morning in those hours,
When, as her pathway lies along the hills,
Her golden fingers wake the dewy flowers,
And softly touch the waters of the rills,
Was she who walked more faintly day by day,
Till silently she perisL.d iy the way.
It was not hers to know that perfect heaven
Of passionate love returned by love as deep ;
Not hers to sing the cradle-song at even,
Watching the beauty of her babe asleep ;
" Mother and brethren" — these she had not known,
Save such as do the Father's will alone.
Yet found she something still for which to live —
Hearths desolate, where angel-like she came,
And " little ones" to whom her hand could give
A cup of water in her Master's name;
And breaking heaits to bind away from death,
With the soft hand of pitying love and faith.
She never won the voice of popular praise,
But, counting earthly triumph as but dross,
Seeking to keep her Savior's perfect ways,
Bearing in the still path his blessed cross,
She made her life, while with us here she trod,
A consecration to the will of God !
And she hath lived and labored not in vain :
Through the deep prison cells her accents thrill,
And the sad slave leans idly on his chain,
Am? hears the music of her singing still ;
While little children, with their innocent praise,
Keep freshly in men's hearts her Christian ways.
And what a beautiful lesson she made known —
The whiteness of her soul sin could not dim ;
Ready to lay down on God's altar stone
The dearest treasure of her life for him.
Her flame of sacrifice never, never waned,
How could she live and die so self-sustained ]
For friends supported not her parting soul,
And whispered words of comfort, kind and sweet,
When treading onward to that final goal,
Where the still bridegroom waited for her feet ;
Alone she walked, yet with a fearless tread,
Down to Death's chamber, and his bridal bed !
DEATH SCENE.
DYING, still slowly dying,
As the hours of night rode by,
She had lain since the light of sunset
Was red on the evening sky :
Till after the middle watches,
As we softly near her trod,
When her soul from its prison fetters
Was loosed by the hand of God.
One moment her pale lips trembled
With the triumph she might not tell,
As the sight of the life immortal
On her spirit's vision fell ;
Then the look of rapture faded,
25
And the beautiful smile was faint,
As that in some convent picture,
On the face of a dying saint.
And we felt in the lonesome midnight,
As we sat bv the silent dead,
What a light on the pnth going downward
The feet of the righteous shed ;
When we thought how with faith unshrinking
She came to the Jordan's tide,
And taking the hand of the Savior,
W7ent up on the heavenly side
LOVE AT THE GRAVE.
REMEMBRANCER of nature's prime,
And herald of her fading near,
The last month of the summer time
Of leaves and flowers is with us hero
More eloquent than lip can preach,
To every heart that hopes and fears,
What solemn lesson does it teach,
Of the quick passage of our years.
To me it brings sad thoughts of one,
Who in the summer's fading bloom
Bright from the arms of love went down
To the dim silence of the tomb.
How often since has spring's soft shower
Revived the life in nature's breast,
And the sweet herb and tender flower
Have been renewed above her rest !
How many summer times have told
To mortal hearts their rapid flight,
Since first this heap of yellow mould
Shut out her beauty from my sight.
Since first, to love's sweet promise true,
My feet beside her pillow trod,
Till year by year the pathway grew
Deeper and deeper in the sod.
Now these neglected roses tell
Of no kind hand to tend them nigh —
Oh God ! I have not kept so well
My faith as in the years gone by !
But here to-day my step returns,
And kneeling where these willows wave,
As the soft flame of sunrise burns
Down through the dim leaves to thy gravo-
I cry, forgive, that I should prove
Forgetful of thy memory ;
Forgive me, that a living love
Once came between my soul and thee !
For the weak heart that vainly yearned
For human love its life to cheer,
Baffled and bleeding, has returned
To stifle down its crying here.
For, steadfast still, thy faith to me
Was one which earth could not estrangrw "
And, lost one ! where the angels be,
I know affection may not change !
MARY LOCKHART LAWSON.
Miss LAWSON is a native of Philadelphia.
Her father, the late Alexander Lawson, of
that city, was a countryman, friend, and in
structor of Wilson, the ornithologist, and in
the life of that remarkable man is frequently
referred to for the most admirable traits of
diameter. He was an artist of such excel
lence that Lucien Bonaparte was accustomed
to speak of him as the master of all the en
gravers in natural history.
Miss Lawson's poems have appeared prin
cipally since 1842, in the Knickerbocker and
in Graham's Magazine. She has occasion
ally written with considerable felicity in the
Scottish dialect, but. I think her English po
ems best, notwithstanding her perfect and
loving familiarity with the language and the
literature of the fatherland cf her parents.
They are characterized by a pleasing fancy,
and frequently by tenderness of feeling, and
a minute and artistlike truthfulness of rural
description. Some of her religious pieces
are graceful and fervid expressions of trust
and devotion.
THE BANISHED LOVER.
Cliarpip ivj« oui m'eloignoit de vous, separoit mon corps de
in'- i'j que Je verruis.
THEY tell me of the prospect I survey,
They speak of streams, and skies of deepest blue,
That shine o'er fertile vales and flowery meads ;
Of mountain clefts, with torrents dashing through:
It may IK- s ) ; for Nature to the gay
Ls ever beautiful — it charms not me !
I only feel my soul remains afar —
My passion-clouded eyes see naught save thee.
The tender, blissful thoughts that fill my soul,
Bound by mine oath to thee, I fain would quell ;
For I have promised, dear one ! for thy sake,
To yield no more to love-enrapturing spell :
I would obey — like other mortals seem;
Bear with my fate, and brave reality :
But shrii'kiiM from the wretchedness it brings,
I cling to visions that are full of thee.
I know that we must part : but do not prove
Too pitilrss, beloved ! nor urge too far
Tin- KiiHei-ings of a grieved and tortured heart,
\Vhore love and honor hold perpetual war:
I go at thy command ; but can I join
A dreu.y world, where thou art naught to me1
No 1 better far in so'itude to dwell,
And cheer its lonely hours with dreams of thee.
Yet oft will memory paint one happy scene,
One moment fraught with ecstasy of bliss,
When, thrilling with the soft clasp of thy hand,
My lips met thine in one long glowing kiss:
Ah, fatal gift! that was our parting doom —
How wert thou shadowed by Fate's stern decree !
Alas! that clouds of sadness should have dimmed
The first, the only boon of love from thee !
BELIEVE IT.
IF thy heart whispers that I love thee still,
Yet living on a memory of the past,
Or that mine eyes with tender tear-drops fill,
As o'er Hope's ruined page my glance is cast —
That oft thy name is blended with my prayer,
Thine image mingled with the morning's light,
That sleep, which drowns all waking dreams of care,
But wafts thy softened shadow to my sight —
Believe it
If when thou dost recall that vine-clad grove, [ding-,
The moonbeamsfilled with checkered light and sha-
Where first we breathed our trembling vows of love,
And lingered till the stars' soft rays were fading,
Thy fancy paints me wandering sad and slow
Through those dim paths that once thy footsten
With deep regrets and sighs of lonely wo, [pressed
That find no echo in thine altered breast —
Believe it.
Though when we meet, I school my downcast eye
And faltering lip to speak a careless greeting,
Or rriid the crowd in silence pass thee by,
Lest I betray my heart's unquiet beating :
'T is that no eye save thine shall ever see
My soul gush forth in yearning to thine own,
Or coldly trace the feelings felt for thee.
And read the love revealed in look and tone —
Believe it.
Wronged by thine anger, prized perchance no more,
From me undying thought thou canst not sever,
Still may I trust to meet thee on that shore
Where pure affection lights the soul for ever:
Though earthly hope in meekness I resign,
E'en while my heart's full tenderness revealing,
Remember, if one doubt arise in thine,
These words of truth in bitter tears I'm sealing:
Believe it !
386
MARY L. LAWSON.
387
THE HAUNTED HEART.
'T is true he ever lingers at her side,
But mark the wandering glances of his eye:
A lover near a fond and plighted bride,
With less of love than sorrow in his sigh !
And well it is for her, that gentle maid,
Who loves too well, too fervently, for fears ;
She deems not her devotion is repaid
With deep repinings o'er life's early years.
For oft another's image fills his breast,
E'en when he breathes to her love's tender vow ;
While her soft hand within his own is prest,
And timid blushes mantle her young brow,
Fond memory whispers of the dreamy past,
Its hopes and joys, its agony and tears :
In vain from out his soul he strives to cast
One shadowy form — the love of early years.
Ne'er from his heart the vision fades away :
Amid the crowd, in silence, and alone,
The stars by night, the clear blue sky by day,
Bring to his mind the happiness now flown ;
A tone of song, the warbling of the birds,
The simplest thing that memory endears,
Can still recall the form, the voice, the words,
Of her, the best beloved of early years.
He dares not seek the spot where first they met,
Too dangerous for bis only hope of rest —
His strong but fruitless effort to forget
Those scenes that wake deep sorrow in his breast;
And yet the quiet beauty of the grove
All plainly to his restless mind appears,
Where, as the sun declined, he loved to rove
With her, the first fond dream of early years.
He sees the stream beside whose brink they strayed,
Engrossed in converse sweet of coming hours,
And watched the rippling currents as they played,
In ebb and flow, upon the banks of flowers :
And the old willow, 'neath whose spreading shade
She owned her love — again her voice he hears,
He starts — alas ! the vision only fades
To leave regretful pangs for early years.
It was his idle vanity that changed
The pure, deep feelings of her trusting heart,
Whose faithful love riot even in thought had ranged,
But worshipped him, from all the world apart:
Now cold and altered is her beaming eye,
And no fond hope his aching bosom cheers,
That she wi 1 shed one tear, or breathe one sigh,
For him she loved so well in early years.
He feels she scorns him with a bitter scorn :
He questions not the justice of his fate,
For long had she his selfish caprice borne,
And wounded pride first taught her how to hale.
Oh, ye who cast away a heart's deep love,
Remember, ere affection disappears,
That keen reproachful throbs your soul may move
Like his who lives to mourn life's early years !
EVENING THOUGHTS
THE evening star, with mild yet radiant light,
Shines clearly 'neath the young moon's pallid cres'..
The last faint gleam of crimson sunset fades
In mellowed hues of brightness from the west,
Soft shadows fall upon the mountain's brow,
And steal with gradual pace o'er wood and stream
A balmy stillness floats upon the earth,
And life is peaceful as a tranquil dream.
O God, whose mantle shades this lovely world,
And leaves a ray of glorious beauty round ;
In that far home where angels spread their wings,
What infinite perfection must abound,
What visions of ecstatic, wondrous bliss,
In thy sublime, thy awful presence dwell,
When in this sphere, all dimmed by sin and pain,
Thy gifts of light and love words may not tell !
Would that my soul each wayward pulse could still,
That I might know thee, Father, as thou art —
That I within thy paths of peace might walk,
And take my place amid the "pure in heart;"
Then might I hope, as death's dark clouds drew near,
Amid the deepening gloom thy smile to see,
But oft my wandering footsteps guide me far
From out the way that leads alone to thec
What if we view upon the brink of wo,
A dazzling gleam steal through the gates of heaven,
And feel at once, while close its pearly doors,
How long its entrance to our steps was given,
Till, in the utter madness of our souls,
Our last taint lingering hope in silence died,
While at the moment of our dreadful doom,
Perchance, we basked in worldliness and pride.
And while in folly's gilded courts I stand,
Is this my fate ? Ah, no ! by these sad tears,
Plead for me, Jesus, meek and holy one,
For thou hast shared earth's agonies and fears ;
Thou seest the struggles of my changing soul —
Oh, let its darker thoughts of grief depart,
And hear my prayer, when, kneeling low, I crave
Thy words of truth may reach my troubled heart
Devoid of merit, what have I to boast,
When man's best virtues are unworthy thee I
Yet in thy mercy will I place my trust,
And in the Cross my hope and promise see ,
And though unresting conscience sternly telis
Of talents unemployed and wasted powers,
Lend me thine aid, and to thy service, Lord,
I'll dedicate the remnant of my hours
MARIA LOWELL
(Born lS21-Died 1853).
MARIA WHITE, the daughter of an opulent
citizen of Watertown, Massachusetts, in 1844
was married to James Russell Lowell, and
for her genius, taste, and many admirable per
sonal qualities, she is worthy to be the wife
of that fine poet and true hearted man. She
has published several elegant translations
from the German, and a large number of or igi
nal poems of the imagination, some of which
illustrate questions of morals and humanity.
JESUS AND THE DOVE.
With patient hand Jesus in clay on. e wrought,
And made a -mow* ilove that upward Hew.
De-r child, from all things draw >,.n)e holy thought,
That, like his dove, they may fly upward too.
MARY, the mother good and mild,
Went forth one summer's day,
That Jesus and his comrades all
In meadows green might play.
To find the brightest, freshest flowers,
They search the meadows round,
They twined them all into a wreath
And little Jesus crowned.
Weary with play, they came at last
And sat at Mary's feet,
While Jesus asked his mother dear
A story to repeat.
" And we," said one, " from out this clay
Will make some little birds ;
So shall we all sit quietly,
And heed the mother's words."
Then Mary, in her gentle voice,
Told of "a little child
Who lost her way one dark, dark night,
Upon a dreary wild ;
And how an angel came to her,
And mai!e all bright around,
And took the trembling little one
From off the damp, hard ground ;
And how he bore her in his arms
Up to the blue so far,
And how he laid her last asleep,
Down in a silver star.
The children sit at Mary's feet,
But not a word they say.
So busily their finders work
To mould the birds of clay.
But now the clay that Jesus held,
And turned unto the light,
Aru\ moulded with a patient touch,
Changed to a perfect white.
And slowly grew within his hands
A fair and gentle dove.
Whose eyes unclose, whose wings unfold,
Beneath his look of love.
The children drop their birds of clay,
And by bis side they stand.
To look upon the wondrous dove
He holds within his hand.
And when he bends and softly breathes,
Wide are the wings outspread ;
And when he bends and breathes again,
It hovers round his head.
Slowly it rises in the air
Before their eager eyes.
And. with a white and steady wing,
Higher and higher flies.
The children all stretch forth their arms
As if to draw it down :
" Dear Jesus made the little dove
From out the clay so brown —
" Canst thou not live with us below,
Thou little dove of clay,
And let us hold thee in our hands,
And feed thee every day ]
" The little dove it hears us not,
But higher still doth fly ;
It could not live with us below —
Its home is in the sky."
Mary, who silently saw all —
That mother true and mild —
Folded her hands upon her breast,
And kneeled before her child.
THE MAIDEN'S HARVEST.
THERE goeth with the early light
Across a barren plain,
One who, with face as morning bright,
Singeth, " I come again :
" And every grain I scatter free
A hundred fold shall yield,
Till waveth as a golden sea
This dark and barren field."
She casteth seed upon the ground,
From out her pure white hand,
And little winds steal up around
To bear it through the land.
She strikes her harp, she sings her song.
She sings so loud and clear —
" Arise, arise, ye sleeping throng,
And bud and blossom here !"
When o'er the hills she passed away,
The Spring remembered her,
And came, with sun and air of May,
The barren earth to stir.
388
MARIA LOWELL.
389
And falling dew the spot did love,
And lingered there till noon ;
And winds and rains moved on above
In softly changing tune.
So when the Autumn cometh rour.d,
The golden heads bend low.
And near and nearer to the ground
Their royal beard doth flow.
The poor rejoice : in throngs they come
To reap the dropping grain ;
Their voices rise in busy hum —
•• Who, who hath sowed the plain]
" And who hath wrought such bounteous cheer
Whore all before was dead !"
They bless the unseen giver dear
Who sent this daily bread.
With harp in hand, a maiden bright
Passed slowly by the throng;
With face as fair as sunset light
The maiden sang her song :
" In morning time I sowed this plain —
Blessed the evening be,
Which gives back every little grain
A hundred fold to me !"
SONG.
OH, Bird, thou dartest to the sun
When morning beams first spring,
And I, like thee. would swiftly run,
As sweetly would I sing;
Thy burning heart doth draw thee up
Unto the source of fire —
Thou drinkest from its glowing cup,
And quenchest thy desire.
Oh, Dew, thou droppest soft below
And plastest all the ground ;
Vet when the noontide comes, I know
Thou never canst be found.
I would like thine had been my birth ;
Then I, without a sigh,
Might sleep the night through on the earth,
To waken in the sky.
Oh, Clouds, ye little tender sheep,
Pastured in fields of blue,
While moon and stars your fold can keep
And gently shepherd you —
Let me, too, follow in the (rain
That Hocks across the night,
Or lingers on the open plain
With new washed fleeces white.
Oh, singina Winds, that wander far,
Yet always seem at home,
And freely play 'twixt star and star
Along the bending dome —
I often listen to your song,
Yet never hear you say
One word of a 1 the happy worlds
That shine. so far away.
For they are free, ye all are free —
And Bird, and Dew, and Light,
Can dart upon the azure sea,
And leave me to my night.
Oh, would like theirs had been my birth :
Then I, without a sigh,
Might sleep this night through on the earth.
To waken in the sky.
Trip: MORNING-GLORY.
WE wreathed about our darling's head
The morning-glory bright ;
Her little, face looked out beneath,
So full of life and light,
So lit as with a sunrise,
That we could only say,
" She is the morning-glory true,
And her poor types are they.'
So always from that happy time
We called her by their name
And very fitting did it seem —
For, sure as morning came,
Behind her cradle bars she smiled
To catch the first faint ray,
As from the trellis smiles the flower
And opens to the day.
But not so beautiful they rear
Their airy cups of blue,
As turned her sweet eyes to the light,
Brimmed with sleep's tender dew ;
And not so close their tendrils fine
Round their supports are thrown,
As those dear arms whose outstretched plea
Clasped all hearts to her own.
We used to think how she had come,
Even as comes the flower,
The last and perfect added gift
To crown love's morning hour,
And how in her was imaged forth
The love we could not say,
As on the little dewdrops round
Shines back the heart of dov.
We never could have thought, 0 God,
That she must wither up.
Almost before a day was flown,
Like the morning-glory's cup ;
We never thought to see her droop
Her fair and noble head,
Till she !ay stretched before our eyes,
Wilted, and cold, and dead !
The mornintr-glory's blossoming
Will soon be coming round :
We see their rows of heart-shaped leaves
Upspringing from the ground ;
The tender things the winter killed
Renew again their birth,
But the glory of our morning
Has passed away from earth.
Oh, Earth ! in vain our aching eyes
Stretch over thy green plain !
Too harsh thy dews, too gross thine air.
Her spirit to sustain :
But up in groves of paradise
Full surely we shall see
Our morning-glory beautiful
Twine round our dear Lord's kneo.
SAEA J. LIPPIXCOTT.
MRS. LrrrrxcoTT, known as "Grace
Of ><>n wood,1' was born of New England pa
rentage, in Onundaga, an agricultural town
near the city of Syracuse, in New York. At
an early age she was taken to Rochester,
which is still the re.-idence of her brother and
my friend of many years, Mr. J. B. Clarke,
wiiose success in the law shows how erro
neous is i he common impression that literary
studies are incompatible wi.h the devotion to
business necessary to professional eminence.
It was probably the displays of his abilities,
in many graceful poems and prose writings,
that led Mrs. Lippincott to the cultivation
of her tastes and powers in the same field.
Certainly it was a great advantage to have
so accomplished a critic, bound by such
bonds, to watch over her earlier essays, and
guard her from the dangers to which youth
ful authorship is most exposed. In a recent
letter she says of Rochester : " It was for
some years my well-beloved home; here it
was that I spent my few school-days, and
received my trifle of book knowledge. It
was here that woman's life first opened up
on me, not as a romance, not as a fairy dream,
not as a golden heritage of beauty and of
pleasure, but as a sphere of labor, and care,
and suffering ; an existence of many efforts
and few successes, of eager and great aspira
tions and slow and partial realizations."
The parents of Mrs. Lippincott afterward
removed to New Brighton, on the Beaver
river, two miles from its junction with the
Ohio, and thirty miles below Pittsburg ; and
it was from this beautiful village, in a quiet
valley, surrounded by the most bold and pic
turesque scenery, that in 1844 she wrote the
first of those sprightly and brilliant letters
under the signature of " Grace Greenwood,"
by which she was introduced to the literary
world. They were addressed to General Mor
ris and Mr. Willis, then editors of the New
Mirror, and being published in that miscel
lany, the question of their authorship was
discussed in the journals and in literary cir
cles ; they were attributed in turn to the most
piquant and elegant of our known writers
and curiosity was in no degree lessened by
intimations that they were by some Diana
oi the West, who, like the ancient goddess,
inspired the men who saw her with madness,
and in her chosen groves and by her streams
used the whip and rein with the boldness and
grace of Mercury. Such secrets are not ea
sily kept, and while the fair magazinist was
visiting the Atlantic cities, in 1846, the veil
was thrown aside and she became known by
her proper name. She has since been among
the most industrious and successful of our au
thors, and has written with perhaps equal
facility and felicity in every style —
" From grave to gay, from lively to severe."
Her apprehensions are sudden and powerful.
The lessons of art and the secrets of experi
ence have no mists for her quick eyes. Ma
ny-sided as Proteus, she yet by an indomita
ble will bends all her strong and passionate
nature to the subject that is present, plucks
from it whatever it has of mystery, and
weaves it into the forms of her imagination,
or casts it aside as the dross of a fruitless
analysis. Educated in a simple condition
of society, where conventionalism had no
authority against truth and reason, and the
healthful activity of her mind preserved by
an admirable physical training and develop
ment — all her thought is direct and honest,
and her sentiment vigorous and cheerful.
But the energy of her character and intelli
gence is not opposed to true delicacy. A fee
ble understanding, and a nature without the
elements of quick and permanent decision,
on the contrary, can not take in the noblest
forms of real or ideal beauty. It is the sham
delicacy that is shocked at things actual and
necessary, that fills the magazines with
rhymed commonplaces, that sacrifices to a
prudish nicety all individualism, and is the
chief bar to aesthetic cultivation and devel
opment. She looks with a poet's eye upon
Nature, and with a poet's soul dares and as
pires for the beautiful, as it is understood by
all the great intelligences whose wisdom
ta.ke> the form of genius.
It is as a prose writer that Mrs. Lippincoit
390
SARA J. LIPPINCOTT.
391
is best known, and it may be that her prose
compositions have more individuality and il
lustrate a wider range of knowledge and re
flection than her poems, but the author of
Ariadne and some of the other pieces here
quoted has given a name to other ages.
ARIADNE.*
DAUGHTER of Crete — how one brief hour,
E'en in thy young love's early morn,
Sends storm and darkness o'er thy bower —
Oh doomed, oh desolate, oh lorn !
The breast which pillowed thy fair head,
Rejects its burden — and the eye
Wuich looked its love so earnestly,
Its last cold glance hath on thee shed ;
The arms which were thy living zone,
Around thee closely, warmly thrown,
Shall others clasp, deserted one !
Yet, Ariadne, worthy thou
Of the dark fate which meets thee now,
For thou art grovelling in thy wo :
Arouse thee ! joy to bid him go ;
For god above, or man below,
Whose love's warm and impetuous tide
Cold interest or selfish pride
Can chill, or stay, or turn aside,
Is all too poor and mean a thing
One shade o'er woman's brow to fling
Of grief, regret, or fear ;
To cloud one morning's go'.den light —
Disturb the sweet dreams of one night —
To cause the soft flash of her eye
To droop one moment mournfully,
Or tremble with one tear !
'Tis thou shouldst triumph; thou art free
From chains which bound thee for a while ;
This, this the farewell meet for thee,
Proud princess on that lonely isle :
" Go — to thine Athens bear thy faithless name ;
Go, base betrayer of a holy trust !
Oh, I could bow me in my utter shame,
And lay my crimson forehead in the dust,
If I had ever loved thee as thou art,
Folding mean falsehood to my high, true heart !
" But thus I loved thee riot : before me bowed
A being glorious in majestic pride,
And breathed his love, and passionately vowed
To worship only me, his peerless bride ;
And this was thou, but crowned, enrobed, entwined,
With treasures borrowed from my own rich mind !
" I knew thee not a creature of my dreams,
And my rapt soul went floating into thine ;
My love around thee poured such halo-beams,
Hadst thou been true, had made thee all divine.
And I, too, seemed immortal in my bliss,
When my glad lip thrilled to thy burning kiss !
* The demigod Theseus having won the love of Ariadne",
daughter of the king of Crete, deserted her OH the isle of
Naxos. In Miss Bremer's H Family, the blind girl
is described as singing "Ariadne a Naxos,"" in which Ari
adne is represented a- following Theseus, climbing a high
rock to watch his departing vessel, and calling upon him
iu her despairing anguish.
" Shrunken and shrivelled into Theseus now
Thou standst : behold, the gods have blown away
The airy crown that glittered on thy brow —
The gorgeous robes which wrapped thee for a day;
Around thee scarce one fluttering fragment clings —
A poor lean beggar in all glorious things !
" Nor will I deign to cast on thee my hate —
It were a ray to tinge with splendor still
The dull, dim twilight of thy after-fate —
Thou shalt pass from me like a dream of ill —
Thy name be but a thing that crouching stole
Like a poor thief, all noiseless from my soul !
" Though thou hast dared to steal the sacred flame
From out that soul's high heaven, she sets thee free;
Or only chains thee with thy sounding shame:
Her memory is no Caucasus for thee ;
And e'en her hovering hate would o'er thee fling
Too much of glory from its shadowy wing !
" Thou thinkst to leave my life a lonely night —
Ha ! it is night ail glorious with its stars !
Hopes yet unclouded beaming forth their light,
And free thoughts rolling in their silver cars !
And queenly pride, serene, and cold, and high,
Moves the Diana of its calm, clear sky !
" If poor and humbled thou believest me,
Mole of a demigod, how blind art thou !
For I am rich — in scorn to pour on thee :
And gods shall bend from high Olympus' brow.
And gaze in wonder on my lofty pride ;
Naxos be hallowed, I be deified !"
On the tall cliff where cold and pale
Thou watchest his receding sail,
Where thou, the daughter of a king,
Wailst like a wind-harp's breaking string,
Bendst like a weak and wilted flower
Before a summer evening's shower —
There shouldst thou rear thy royal form,
Like a young oak amid the storm,
Uncrushed, unbowed, unriven !
Let thy last glance burn through the air,
And fall far down upon him there,
Like lightning stroke from heaven !
There shouldst thou mark o'er billowy crest
His white sail flutter and depart;
No wild fears surging at thy breast,
No vain hopes quivering round thy hearl 5
And this brief, burning prayer alone
Leap from thy lips to Jove's high throne :
"Just Jove! thy wratchful vengeance stay.
And speed the traitor on his way ;
Make vain the siren's silver song,
Let nereids smile the wave along —
O'er the wild waters send his bark
Like a swift arrow to its mark !
Let whirlwinds gather at his back,
And diive him on his dastard track;
Let thy red bolts behind him burn,
And blabt him, should he dare to turn !"
392
SARA J. LIPPINCOTT.
DREAMS.
TIIF.HK was a season when I loved
The calm and holy night,
When like yon silvery evening star,
Just trembling on our sight,
My spirit through its heaven of dreams
Went floating forth in light.
Night is the time when Nature seems
God's silent worshipper;
And ever with a chastened heart
In unison with her,
[ laid me on my peaceful couch,
The day's dull cares resigned,
And let my thoughts fold up like flowers,
In the twilight of the mind :
Fast round me closed the shades of sleep,
And then burst on my sight
Visions of glory arid of love,
The stars of slumber's night !
Dreams, wondrous dreams, which far around
Did such rich radiance fling,
As the sudden, first unfurling
Of a young angel's wing.
Then sometimes blessed beings came,
Parting the midnight skies,
And bore me to their shining homes,
The bowers of paradise ;
I felt my worn, world-wearied soul
Bathed in divine repose —
My earth-chilled heart in the airs of heaven
Unfolding as a rose.
Nor were my dreams celestial all,
For oft along my way
Clustered the scenes and joys of home,
The loves of every day :
Soft, alter angel-music, still
The voices round my hearth —
Sweet, alter paradisean flowers,
The violets of earth.
But now I dread the night: it holds
Within its weary bounds
Strife, griefs, and fears, red battle-fields,
And spectre-haunted grounds !
One night there sounded through my dreams
A trumpet's stirring peal,
And then methought I went forth armed,
And clad in glittering steel —
And sprang upon a battle-steed,
And led a warrior band,
And we swept, a flood of fire and death,
Victorious through the land !
(Mi, what wild rapture 'twas to mark
My serried ranks advance,
And see amid the foe go down
Banner, and plume, and lance !
The living trampled o'er the dead —
The fallen, line on line,
Were crushed like grapes at vintage time,
And blood was poured like wine!
My sword was dripping to its hilt,
And this small, girlish hand
Planted the banner, lit the torch,
And waved the stern rommand.
How swelled and burned within rny heart
Fierce hate and fiery pride —
My very soul rode like a bark
On the battle's stormy tide !
Mi/ pitying and all-woman's soul —
Oh no, it was not mine !
Perchance mine slumbered, or had left
Awhile its carth'y shrine ;
So the spirit of a Joan d'Arc
Stole in my sleeping frame,
And wrote her history on my heart
la words of blood and flame.
My dead are with me in my dreams,
Rise from their still, lone home —
But are they as I loved them here ]
O Heaven, 'tis thus they come !
Silent and cold, the pulseless form
In burial garments dressed,
The pale hands holding burial-flowers
Close folded on their breast !
My living — they in whose tried hearts
My wild, impassioned love
Foldeth its wings contentedJy,
And nestles as a dove —
They come, they hold me in their arms ;
My heart, with joy oppressed,
Seems panting 'neath its blessed weight,
And swooning in my breast ;
My eyes look up through tears of bliss,
Like flowers through dews of even,
There's a painful fulness in my lips,
Till the kiss of love is given :
When sudden their fresh, glowing lips
Are colorless and cold,
And an icy, shrouded corse is all
My shuddering arms enfold !
Have I my guardian angels grieved,
That they have taken flight 1
Or frown'st thou on me, oh my God !
In the visions of the night ]
Yet with a child's fond faith I rest
Still on thy fatherhood ;
Speak peace unto my troubled dreams.
Thou merciful and good !
And oh ! if cares and griefs must come,
And throng my humble wray,
Then let me, strengthened and refreshed,
Strive with them in the day ;
This glorious world which thou hast made,
Spread out in bloom before me,
Thy blessed sunshine on my path,
Thy radiant skies hung o'er me.
But when, like ghosts of the sun's lost rays,
Come down the moonbeams pale,
And the dark earth lies like an eastern bride
Beneath her silvery veil —
Then let the night, with its silence deep,
Its dews, and its starry gleams,
Be peace, and rest, and love — O God,
Smile on me in my dreams !
SARA J. LIPPINCOTT.
393
ILLUMINATION,
FOR THE TRIUMPH OF OUR ARMS IN MEXICO.
LIGHT up thy homes, Columbia,
For those chivalric men
Who bear to scenes of warlike strife
Thy conquering arms again ;
Where glorious victories, flash on flash,
Reveal their stormy way —
Resaca's, Palo Alto's fields,
The heights of Monterey !
They pile with thousands of thy foes
Buena Vista's plain ;
With maids, and wives, a Vera Cruz,
Swell high the list of slain;
They paint upon the southern skies
The blaze of burning domes —
Their laurels dew with blood of babes :
Light up, light up thy homes !
Light up your homes, oh fathers !
For those young hero bands
Whose march is still through vanquished towns
And over conquered lands ;
Whose valor wild, impetuous,
In all its fiery glow
Pours onward like a lava-tide,
And sweeps away the foe !
For those whose dead brows Glory crowns,
On crimson couches sleeping ;
And for home faces wan with grief,
And fond eyes dim with weeping :
And for the soldier, poor, unknown,
Who battled madly brave,
Beneath a stranger-soil to share
A shallow, crowded grave.
Light up thy home, young mother !
Then gaze in pride and joy
Upon those fair and gentle girls,
That eagle-eyed young boy ;
And clasp thy darling little one
Yet closer to thy breast,
And be thy kisses on its lips
In yearning love impressed.
In yon beleaguered city
Were homes as sweet as thine ;
There trembling mothers felt loved arms
In fear around them twine ;
The lad with brow of ciive hue,
The babe like lily fair,
The maiden with her midnight eyes
And wealth of raven hair.
The booming shot, the murderous shell,
Crashed through the crumbling walls,
And fi.led with agony and death
Those sacred household halls ;
Then, bleeding, crushed, and blackened, lay
The sister by the brother,
And the torn infant gasped and writhed
On the bosom of the mother !
Oh. sisters, if you have no tears
For fearful scenes like these ;
If the banners of the victors veil
The victims' agonies;
If ye lose the babe s ana mother's cry
In the noisy roll of drums ;
If your hearts with martial pride throb high —
Light up, light up your homes !
THE LAST GIFT.
I LEAVE thee, love : in vain hast thou
The God of life implored ;
My clinging soul is torn from thine,
My faithful, my adored \
My last gift — I have on it breathed
In blessing and in prayer ;
So lay it close, close to thy heart,
This little lock of hair !
I know thou wilt think tenderly
And lovingly on me ;
Thou wilt forget my waywardness
When I am gone from thee ;
Thou wilt remember all my love,
Which made thee think me fair ;
Thou wilt with many tears begem
This little lock of hair !
And yet at last, thy grief's wild storm
WTill sigh itself to rest ;
And thou mayst choose another love,
And clasp her to thy breast :
But when she hides her glowing face
In tearful gladness there,
Oh, do not let ner hand displace
This little lock of hair !
The dark, rich hue thou oft hast praised,
The ringlet still shall hold ;
Still, as the sunlight on it falls,
Give out quick gleams of gold :
Though years roll by, no trace of change
Its glossy rings shall wear —
It never will grow gray, beloved,
This little lock of hair !
And when the earth weighs chill and damp
Above my resting-place,
When fall moist tresses heavily
Around my cold, dead face —
'Tis sweet to know a part of me
Thine own life-glow may share —
Thou 'It keep it warm, love, always warm,
This little lock of hair !
Ah, dearest ! see how pale and cold
Has grown this hand of mine !
No longer now it glows and thrills
Within the clasp of thine.
I go ! — soon where my dying head
Is pillowed with fond care,
No trace of me shall linger, save
This little lock of hair !
I see thee not ! I faintly fee!
The fast tears thou dost weep 5
Kiss down my quivering eyelids, lovd.
Thus, thus, and I will sleep.
I go where angels beckon me,
I go their heaven to share —
Yet with a longing envy leave
This little lock of hair '
3'J4
SARA J. LIPPING OTT.
A LOVER TO HIS FAITHLESS MISTRESS.
THOU false ! thy voice is in mine ear;
The love-looks of thine eyes,
To meet my gaze most passionate,
In dreamy softness rise ;
I feel the beating of thy heart —
I breathe thy perfumed sighs !
Thou false ! thy thrilling fingers part
The locks from off my brow;
And on these lips, where live no more
Fond prayer and burning vow,
The wine and honey of thy kiss
Are lingering even now.
I mock myself with visions vain:
Another life than mine
Bathes in the rose-light of thv love ;
Blush, tone, and glance of thine,
Are pouring through another heart
A tide of life divine !
At last I know thee — and my soul,
From all thy spells set free,
Abjures the cold, consummate art
Shrined as a soul in thee,
Priestess of falsehood — deeply learned
In all heart-treachery !
Yet look thou on me, if thine eyes
May dare again to scan
A face where honor is not masked,
Nor truth put under ban —
Wouldst know me for that poor, sad thing,
A spirit-broken man ]
Ay, look ! — is not this head yet borne
Full haughtily and high]
Is this lip tremulous with sighs,
Or pale with agony ?
And wouldst thou feel a prouder fire
Outflashing from mine eye ]
Each lingering, murmuring thought of love,
The heart which thou hast riven
Crushes to silence — each regret
For false joys thou hast given,
And flings thy very memory
To all the winds of heaven !
Go, lavish on another now
Thy frothy love's excess ;
Go measure out thy practised words
Of lip-deep tenderness ;
Go dupe him with thy well-trained smiles,
Thy meaningless caress !
Leave him in trusting folly blest —
Enchant, enchain him still —
Awake his most adoring thoughts,
Make every heartstring thrill,
Hold thou his life and very soul
The blind slaves of thy will !
I give thee joy : thou hear'st fond lips
A new love's tale repeating ;
Thine every glance wealth's pomp and glare
And glittering gauds are meeting,
And merrily to the ring of coin
Thy hollow heart is beating
Thou workest miracles, fair saint,
Not found in legends old :
Thy showers of silver tears return
To thee in showers of gold ;
Thy melting kisses change to gems,
Sweet lady bought and sold !
HRRVEY TO NINA.
SUGGESTED I5Y A 1'ASSAGE IX FHEDERIKA BREMER
DIVIDED in our lives, and yet twin-hearted,
Our sad first parents shared a happier fate ;
When from Love's Eden, dearest, we departed,
'T was ours to sever at the outer gate.
Ah, yet I know whatever path thou'rt tracing,
Thy tearful eye is sometimes backward cast,;
Thou art not coldly from thy heart effacing
The thrilling story of our blissful past —
When life was like a sunset's glories btended
With all the waking splendors of the morn ; [ed,
And when, dear love, if some light showers descend-
It seemed 'twas but that rainbows might be born.
Oh warm, oh beautiful, oh glorious season,
Like the first blushing time of Cashmere's roses!
My soul forgets cold truth and worldly reason,
And in thy lap of languid joy reposes.
In reveries delicious I revisit
Each spot where Love's impassioned tale was to'd ;
Where moments passed of pleasure so exquisite,
Time should have marked their flight with sands of
gold.
Again upon my throbbing breast thon'rt leaning,
Oh, fond y, wildly loved one — oh, adored !
Again come back thy words of tenderest meaning,
That once such raptures through my bosom poured.
Again I feel the wish, intense and burning,
To live within thy life, to drink thine air ;
That deep, mysterious, and mighty yearning
Would draw me down from heaven, wert thou not
there.
A fount there was within each bosom flowing,
That gushed not water, but love's purple wine ;
Sparkling with rapture and with passion glowing,
It maketh mortals for a space divine.
'T was joy to know thee of that fountain drinking
Within my soul upspringing but for thee ;
And I of thine as deeply, all unthinking
There might be madness in that draught for me
When all of b'iss the earth-born may inherit
Divinely lavish was around us thrown,
And when the mystic union of the spirit
Had twined our glowing beings into one —
Then were we parted : Hope's ecstatic vision
Grewdim with tears, and Joy'syoun^ pinion furled
Pillowed on flowers, we had a dream Elysian,
And we have wakened in a stormy world !
Gone, gone, for ever ! we beheld it v.inish,
As a warm cloud melts in the b'ue above;
Yet from our souls no power create can banish
The golden memory of that dream of love!
SARA J. LIPPINCOTT.
395
CANST THOU FORGET?
CANST them forget, beloved, our first awaking
From out the .shadowy realm of doubts and dreams,
To know Love's perfect sunlight round us breaking,
Bathing our beings in its gorgeous gleams —
Canst thou forget 1
A sky of rose and gold was o'er us glowing,
Around us was the morning breath of May ;
Then met our soul-tides, thence together flowing,
Then kissed our thought-waves, mingling on their
way : Canst thou forget 1
Canst thou forget when first thy loving fingers
Laid gently back the locks upon my brow 1
Ah, to my woman's thought that touch still lingers
And softly glides along my forehead now !
Canst thou forget?
Canst thou forget when every twilight tender,
Mid dews and sweets, beheld our slow steps rove.
And when the nights which came in starry splendor
Seemed dim and pallid to our heaven of love 1
Canst thou forget]
Canst thou forget the childlike heart-outpouring
Of her whose fond faith knew no faltering fears'!
The lashes drooped to veil her eyes adoring,
Her speaking silence, and her blissful tears 1
Canst thou forget 1
Canst thou forget the last most mournful meeting1,
The trembling form clasped to thine anguished
breast,
The heart against thine own, now wildly beating,
Now fluttering faint, grief-wrung, and fear-op
pressed — Canst thou forget 1
Canst thou forget, though all Love's spells be broken,
The wild farewell which rent our souls apart!
And that last gift, Affection's holiest token,
The severed tress, which lay upon thy heart — •
Canst thou forget 1
Canst thou forget, beloved one — comes there never
The angel of sweet visions to thy rest 1
Brings she not back the fond hopes fled for ever,
While one lost name thrills through thy sleeping
breast — Canst thou forget 1
INVOCATION TO MOTHER EARTH.
On, Earth ! thy face hath not the grace
That smiling Heaven did bless,
When thou wert " good," and blushing stood
In thy young loveliness ;
And, mother dear, the smile and tear
In thee are strangely met ;
Thy joy and wo together flow —
But ah ! we love thee yet.
Thou still art fair, when morn's fresh air
Thrills with the lark's sweet song ;
When Nature seems to wake from dreams,
And laugh and dance along ;
Thou'rt fair at day, when clouds all gray
Fade into glorious blue ;
When sunny Hours fly o'er the flowers,
And kiss away the dew.
Thou 'rt fair at eve, when skie» receive
The last smiles of the sun ;
When through the shades that twilight spreads
The stars peep, one by one ;
Thou 'rt fair at night, when full starlight
Streams down upon the sod ;
When moonlight pale on hill and dale
Rests like the smile of God.
And thou art grand, where lakes expand,
And mighty rivers roll ;
WThere Ocean proud with threatenings loud
Mocketh at man's control ;
And grand thou art when lightnings dart
And gleam athwart the sky ;
When thunders peal, and forests reel,
And storms go sweeping by !
We bless thee now, for gifts that thou
Hast freely on us shed ;
For dew and showers, and beauteous bowers.
And blue skies overhead ;
For morn's perfume, and midday's bloom,
And evening's hour of mirth ;
For glorious night, for all things bright,
We bless thee, Mother Earth !
But when long years of care and tears
Have come and passed away,
The time may be, when sadly we
Shall turn to thee. and say :
" WTe are worn with life, its toils and strife,
We long, we pine for rest ;
We come, we come, all wearied home —
Room, mother, in thy breast !"
"THERE WAS A ROSE."
THKIIT. was a rose, that blushing grew
Within my life's young bower ;
The angels sprinkled holy dew
Upon the blessed flower :
I glory to resign it, love,
Though it was dear to me ;
Amid thy laurels twine it, love,
It only blooms for thee.
There was a rich and radiant gem
I long kept hid from sight,
Lost from some seraph's diadem —
It shone with Heaven's own light !
The world could never tear it, love,
That gem of gems from me ;
Yet on thy fond breast wear it, love,
It only shines for thee.
There was a bird came to my breast,
When I was very young;
I only knew that sweet bird's nest,
To me she only sung ;
But, ah ! one summer day, love,
I saw that bird depart :
The truant flew thy way, love,
And nestled in thy heart
396
SARA J. LIPPINCOTT.
THE SCULPTOR'S LOVE.
THE sculptor paused before his finished work —
A wondrous statue of divinest mould.
Jake Cytherea's were the rounded limbs,
The hands, in whose soft fulness, still and deep,
Like Bleeping Loves, the chiseled dimples lay,
The ha r s rich fall, the lip's exquisite curve ;
But most like Juno's were the brow of pride,
And loft, bearing of the matchless head.
While over all, a mystic holiness,
Like Di tn's purest smile, aroun 1 her hung,
And hushed the idle gazer, like the air
Which haunts at night the temples of the gods.
As stood the sculptor, with still folded arms,
And viewed this shape of rarest loveliness,
No Hush of triumph crimsoned o'er his brow,
Nor grew his dark eye luminous with joy.
Heart-crushed wit'i grief, worn with intense desires,
And wasting with a mal, consuming fla.ne,
He wildly gazed— his cold cheek rivalling
The whiteness of the marble he had wrought.
The robe's loose folds which lay upon his breast
Tumultuous rJse and fell, like ocean-waves
Upheaved by storms beneath ; and on his brow,
In beaded drops, the dew of anguish lay.
And thus he flung himself upon the earth,
And poured in prayer his wi'd and burning words :
" Great Jove, to thy high throne a mortal's prayer
In all the might of anguish struggles up !
Thou see'st this statue, chiseled by mv hand —
Thou hast beheld, as day by day it grew
To more than earthly beauty, till it stood
The wjn ler of the glorious world of art.
The sculptor wrought not blindly : oft there came
Biest visions to his soul of forms divine;
Of white-armed Juno, in that hour of love,
"When fondling close the cu-koo, tempest-chilled,
She all unconscious in that form did press
The mighty sire of the eternal gods
To her soft bosom ! — Aphrodite fair
As first she trod the g!ad, enamored earth
With small, white feet, spray-dripping from the sea ;
Of crested Dian, when her nightly kiss
Piessei down the eyelids of Endymion —
Her silvery presence making all the air
Of dewy Latinos tremulous with love.
" And now (deem not thy suppliant impious,
Our being's source, thou Father of all life,)
A wild, o'ermastering passion fires my soul ;
I madly love the work my hand hath wrought!
Intoxicate, I gaze through all the day,
And mocking visions haunt my conch at night;
My heart is faint and sick with longings vain,
A passionate thirst is parching up my life.
" I call upm her, and she answers not!
The fond love-na-nes I breathe into her ear
Are met with maddening silence ; when I clasp
Those slender fingers in my fevered bund,
Their coldness chills me like the touch of death'
And when my heart's wild beatings shake my frame,
And pain my breast with love's sweet agony,
No faintest throb that marble bosom stirs !
" Oh, I would have an eye to gaze in mine ;
A.n ear to listen for my coming step ;
A voice of love, with tones like Joy's own bells,
To ring their silver changes on mine ear ;
A yielding hand, to thrill within mine own,
And lips of me' ting sweetness, full and warm !
Would change this deathless stone to mortal flesh,
And barter immorta ity for love!
" If voice of earth, in wildest prayer, may reach
To godho:)d, throned amid the purple clouds,
To animate this cold and pulseless stone,
Grant thou one breath of that immortal air
WThich feedeth human life from age to age,
And floats round high Olympus. — Hear, O Jove !
"And so this form mav shrine a soul of light,
Whose starry radiance sha'l unseal these eyes,
Send down the sky's b'.ue deeps, 0 Sire divine —
One faintest gleam of that benignant smile
Which glows upon the faces of the gods,
And lights all heaven. — Hear, mighty Jove !"
He stayed his prayer, and on his statue gazed.
Behold, a gentle heaving stirred its breast !
O'er all the form a flush of rose-light passed ;
Along the limbs the azure arteries throbbed ;
A golden lustre settled on the head,
Arid gleamed amid the meshes of the hair;
The rounded cheek grew vivid with a blush ;
Ambrosial breathings cleft the curved lips,
And softly through the arched nostril stole;
The fringed lids quivered and uprose, and eyes
Like violets wet with dew drank in the light.
Moveless she stood, until her wandering glance
Upon the rapt face of the sculptor fell :
Bewildered and abashed, it sank beneath
The burning gaze of his adoring eyes.
And then there ran through all her trembling frame
A strange, sweet thrill of blissful consciousness:
Life's wildest joy, in one delicious tide,
Poured through the channels of her newborn heart,
And Love's first sigh rose quivering from her breast !
She turned upon her pedestal, and smiled,
And toward the kneeling youth bent tenderly.
He rose, sprang forward with a passionate cry,
And joyously outstretched his thrilling arms ;
And lo ! the form he sculptured from the stone,
Instinct with life, and radiant with soul,
A breathing shape of beauty, soft and warm,
Of mortal womanhood, all smiles and tears,
In love's sweet trance upon his bosom lay.
THE DREAM.
LAST night, my love, I dreamed of thee —
Yet 't was no dream elysian ;
Draw closer to my breast, dear Blanche,
The while I tell the vision:
Methought that I had left thee long,
And, home in haste returning —
My heart, lip, cheek, with love and joy
And wild impatience burning —
I called thee through the silent house ,
But here, at last, I found thee.
Where, deathly still and ghostly white,
The curtains fell around thee.
Dead — dead thou wert ! — cold lay that form.
In rarest beauty moulded
SARA J. LIPPINCOTT.
397
And meekly o'er thy still, white breast
The snowy hands were folded.
Methought thy couch was fitly strewn
With many a fragrant blossom ;
Fresh violets thy fingers clasped,
And rosebuds decked thy bosom :
But thine eyes, so like young violets,
• Might smile upon me never,
And the rose.-bloom from thy cheek and lip
Had fled away for ever !
I raised thee lovingly — thy head
Against my bosom leaning,
And called thv name, and spoke to thee
In words of tenderest meaning.
I sought to warm thee at my breast —
My arms close round thee flinging ;
To breathe my life into thy lips,
With kisses fond and clinging.
Oh, hour of fearful agony !
In vain my phrensied pleading;
Thy dear voice hushed, thy kind eye closed,
My lonely grief unheeding!
Pale wert thou as the lily-buds
Twined mid thv raven tresses,
And cold thy lip and still thy heart
To all my wild caresses !
I woke, amid the autumn night,
To hear the rain descending,
And roar of waves and howl of winds
In stormy concert blending.
But, oh ! my waking joy was morn,
From heaven's own portals flowing,
And the summer of thy living love
Was round about me glowing !
I woke — ah, blessedness ! to feel
Thy white arms round thee wreathing —
To hear, amid the lonely night,
Thy calm and gentle breathing!
I bent above thy rest till morn,
With many a whispered blessing —
Soft, timid kisses on thy lips
Arid blue-veined eyelids pressing.
While thus from Slumber's shadowy realm
Thy truant soul recalling,
Thou couidst not know whence sprang the tears
Upon thy forehead falling.
And oh, thine eye's sweet wonderment,
When thou didst ope them slowly,
To mark mine own bent on thy face
In rapture deep and holy !
Thou couidst not know, till I had told
That dream of fearful warning,
How much of heaven was in my words —
" God bless thee, love — good-morning !"
DARKENED HOURS.
WITH folded arms and drooping head,
I stand, my heart's blest goal unwon;
My soul's high purpose unattained —
But life — but life goes hurrying on!
I pause and linger by the way,
With fainting heart and slumbering powers,
And still the grand, immortal height
Which I would climb, before me towers.
And still far up its rugged steep,
The poet-laurel mocks mine eyes;
While sweetly on its summit wave
The fadeless flowers of paradise.
My voice is silent, though I mark
The toil and wo of human lives,
The beauty of that human love
That meekly suffers, trusts, and strives.
My voice is silent, though I see
The captive pining in his cell,
And hear the exiled patriot breathe
O'er the wild seas his sad farewell
No song of joy is on my lip
WThile Freedom's banners are unfurled,
And Freedom's fearless battle-shouts
And triumph-lays ring round the world !
No glow of rapturous feeling comes
To flush my cheek, or light mine eye,
WThile golden splendors of the morn
Are kindling all the eastern sky.
Nor when, while dews weigh down the rose,
I read amid the shadowy even
That bright Evangel of our God,
Whose words are worlds, the starry heaven,
Yet was my nature formed to feel
The gladness and the grief of life —
To thrill at Freedom's name, and joy
In all her brave and holy strife ;
To tremble with the perfect sense
Of all things lovely or sublime,
The glory of the midnight heaven,
The beauty of the morning time.
God-written thoughts are in my heart,
And deep within my being lie
Eternal truths and glorious hopes,
Which I must speak before I die
Who shall restore the early faith,
The fresh, strong heart, the utterance bold 1
Ah ! when may be this weary weight
From off my groaning spirit rolled ]
To Thee I turn, before whose throne
No earnest suppliant bows in vain :
My spirit's faint and lonely cry
Thou wilt not in thy might disdain.
Awake in me a truer life !
A soul to labor and aspire ;
Touch thou my mortal lips, 0 God,
With thine own truth's immortal fire !
Be with me in my darkened hours —
Bind up rny bruised heart once more ;
The grandeur of a lofty hope
About my lowly being pour !
Give strength unto my spirit's wing,
Give light unto my spirit's eye,
And let the sunshine of thy smile
Upon my upward pathway lie !
Thus, when my soul in thy pure faith
Hath grown serene, and free, and strong
Thy greatness may exalt my thought,
Thy love make beautiful my song.
398
SARA J. LIPPIXCOTT.
LOVE AND DARING.
THOU darcst not love me ! thou canst only see
The great gulf set between us : hadst thou love,
'T would hear thee o'er it on a wing of fire !
Wilt put from thy faint lip the mantling cup,
The draught thou 'st prayed for with divinest thirst,
For fear a poison in the chalice lurks'?
Wilt thou be barred from thy soul's heritage,
The power, the rapture, and the crown of life,
By the poor guard of danger set about it?
I tell thee that the richest flowers of heaven
Bloom on the brink of darkness. Thou hast marked
How sweet y o'er the beetling precipice
Hangs the young June-rose with its crimson heart :
And woiildst not sooner peril life to win
That royal flower, that thou mightst proudly wear
The trophy on thy breast, than idly pluck
A thousand meek-fared daisies by the way?
How dost thou shudder at Love's gentle tones,
As though a serpent's hiss were in thine ear !
Albe t thy heart throbs echo to each word,
Why wilt not rest, oh weary wanderer,
Upon the couch of flowers Love spreads for thee,
On banks of sunshine ? — voices silver-toned
Shall lull thy soul with strange, wild harmonies,
Rock thee to sleep upon the waves of song ;
Hope shall watch o'er thee with her breath of dreams,
Joy hover near, impatient for thy waking —
Her quick wing glancing through the fragrant air.
Why dost thou pause hard by the rose-wreathed
Why turn thee from the^paradise of youth, [gate !
Where Love's immortal summer blooms and glows,
And wrap thyself in coldness as a shroud]
Perchance 'tis well for thee— yet does the flame
That glows with heat intense and mounts toward
As fitly emblem holiest purity [heaven,
As the still snow-wreath on the mountain's brow.
Thou darest not say, " I love," and yet thou lovest,
And think'st to crush the mighty yearning down,
That in thy spirit shall upspring for ever !
Twinned with thy soul, it lived in thy first thoughts,
It haunted with strange dreams thy boyish years,
And colored with its deep, empurpled hue,
The passionate aspirations of thy youth.
Go, take from June her roses ; from her streams
Tin- bubbling fountain-springs; from life take love,
Thou hast its all of sweetness, bloom, and strength.
T-iere is a grandeur in the soul that dares
To live out all the life God lit within ;
That battles with the passions hand to hand,
And wears no mail, and hides behind no shield;
That p'ucks its joy in the shadow of Death's wing,
That drains with one deep draught the wine of life,
An, I that with fearless foot and heaven-turned eye
May stand upon a dizzy precipice,
High o'er the abvss of ruin, and not fall!
A MORNING RIDE.
WHKV troubled in spirit, when weary of life,
When I faint 'neath its burdens, and shrink from
its strife —
When its fruits turned to ashes are mocking my
taste,
And its fairest scene seems but a desolate waste;
Then come ye not near me my sad heart to cheer
With Friendship's soft accents or Sympathy's tear;
No counsel I ask, and no pity I need,
But bring me, oh, bring me my gallant young steed,
With his high-arched neck and his nostril spread
His eye full of fire, and his step fu 1 of pride ! [wide,
As I spring to his back, as I seize the strong rein,
The strength of my spirit returneth again :
The bonds are all broken which fettered my mind,
And my cares borne away on the wings of the wind ;
My pride lifts its head, for a season bowed down,
And the queen in my nature now puts on her crown.
Now we 're off like the winds to the plains whence.
they came,
And the rapture of motion is thrilling my frame.
On. on speeds my courser, scarce printing the sod,
Scarce crushing a daisy to mark where he trod.
On, on, like a deer, when the hounds' early bay
Awakes the wild echoes, away and away !
Still faster, still farther he leaps at my cheer,
Till the rush of the startled air whirrs in my ear;
Now 'long a clear rivulet lieth his track —
See his glancing hoof tossing the white pebbles back;
Now a glen dark as midnight — what matter ] —
we'll down,
Though shadows are round us, and rocks o'er us
frown ;
The thick branches shake as we're hurry ins through,
And deck us with spangles of silvery dew.
Whata wild thought of triumph, that this girlish hand
Such a steed in the might of his strength may com
mand !
What a glorious creature ! ah, g!ance at him now,
As I check him a while on this green hillock's brow ;
How he tosses his mane with a shrill, joyous neigh,
And paws the firm earth in his proud, stately play !
Hurrah, off acrain — dashing on. as in ire,
Till the long flinty pathway is flashing with fire !
Ho, a ditch ! — shall we pause 1 No, the bold leap
we dare —
Like a swift-winged arrow we rush through the air.
Oh ! not all the pleasure that poets may praise—
Not the 'wildering waltz in the ballroom's blaze,
Nor the chivalrous joust, nor the daring race,
Nor the swift regatta, nor merry chase,
Nor the sail high heaving waters o'er,
Nor the rural dance on the moonlight shore —
Can the wild and thrilling joy exceed
Of a fearless leap on a f.ery steed.
ANNA H. PHILLIPS.
" HELEN IRVING" is the graceful nom de
plume of Miss ANNA H. PHILLIPS, of Lynn,
Massachusetts — probably the youngest of
our young American poetesses. She is not
a professional authoress, having written but
little, and published less ; but, judging by the
quality rather than the quantity of her pro
ductions, she can not be denied the posses
sion of a fine poetical genius. Her first poem,
Love and Fame, which appeared in the Home
Journal, in the spring of 1847, Mr. Willis
thus introduced to the public ; " We might
, have called attention, very reasonably and
justly, to the beautiful versification of this
production — to the melody, and the varied
succession of melody, in the flow of the slan-
zas. They prove the nicest possi ble ear, with
the happiest subjection to critical judgment,
True genius is in the conception, we think,
and an assurance of successful genius lies in
the twin excellence of giving so beautiful a
thought its fit embodiment."
LOVE AND FAME.
IT had passed in all its grandeur, that sounding
summer shower
Had paid its pearly tribute to each fair expectant
flower,
And while a thousand sparklers danced lightly on
the spray,
Close folded to a rosebud's heart one tiny rain-drop
lay-
Throughout each fevered petal had the heaven-
brought freshness gone,
They had mingled dew and fragrance till their very
souls were one ;
The bud its love in perfume breathed, till its pure
and starry guest
Grew glowing as the life-hue of the lips it fondly
pressed.
He dreamed away the hours with her, his gentle
bride and fair,
No thought filled his young spirit, but to dwell for
ever there,
While ever bending wakefully, the bud a fond
watch kept,
For fear the envious zephyrs might steal him as
he slept.
But forth from out his tent of clouds in burnished
armor bright,
The conquering sun came proudly in the glory of
his might,
And, like some grand enchanter, resumed his wand
of power,
And shed the splendor of his smile on lake, and
tree, and flower.
Then, peering through the shadowy leaves, the rain
drop marked on high,
A many-bued triumphal arch span all the eastern
sky—
He saw his glittering comrades all wing their joyous
flight,
And stand — a glorious brotherhood — to form that
bow of light !
Aspiring thoughts his spirit thrilled — " Oh, let me
join them, love !
I'll set thy beauty's impress on yon bright arch
above,
And, as a world's admiring gaze is raised to iris
fair,
'T will deem my own dear rosebud's tint the love
liest color there !"
The gentle bud released her clasp — swift as a
thought he flew,
And brightly mid that glorious band he soon was
glowing too —
All quivering with delight to feel that she, his rose
bud bride,
Was gazing, with a swelling heart, on this, his hour
of pride !
But the shadowy night came down at last — the
glittering bow was gone,
One little hour of triumph was all the drop had
won :
He had lost the warm and tender glow, his distant
bud-love's hue,
And he sought her sadly sorrowing — a tear-dimmed
star of dew.
NINA TO RIENZL*
LEAVE thee, Rienzi ! Speak not thus,
Why should I quit thy side 1
Say, shall I shrink with craven fear,
Thine own, and freedom's bride 1
Whence comes the sternness on thy lip —
Needs Nina to be tried ?
* It is recorded, that when the "last of the tribunes"
saw. in the discontent of the people and the withdrawal
of the tavorof the church, approaching peril, he bade his
young wife seek shelter with tho~e who would cherish
and shield her, and leave him to meet danger alone. But
she nobly preferred suffering and death with him sho
loved, to life with separation from him.
39J
100
ANNA H. PHILLIPS.
I leave thee ! didst thou win and wed
A fond, weak girl — to twine
Her arms around thee in thy joy —
To press her lips to thine,
And breathe a love born of the heart,
But not the soul divine !
To thrill with childish awe, whene'er
Thv brow grew dark with thought,
And when the threatening lightnings gleamed
Thv dark'ning sky athwart,
Shrink from the crash, and leave thee lone,
Amid the wrecks it wrought !
Am I not thine — wedded to thee
In heart, and soul, and mind — •
Thou, and free Rome, within my breast
As on one altar shrined —
My destiny, my very life,
Closely with thine entwined !
Thou calledst me thine, when freemen flung
Fame's laurel on thy brow;
And am I less thine own — my love
Less fondly cherished now,
When Rome dishonoring miscreants dare
That fame to disavow !
Look in mine eyes ! thou know'st thy love
Has been to me a heaven,
In which my soul has floated, like
The one pure star of even —
Proud in the lofty consciousness
Of glory gained and given.
Nay, strive not to look coldly, love,
Thou reckst not of the power
With which my heart will cling to thine
In mad misfortune's hour —
Glowing more bright its changeless truth,
As darker storms shall lower.
And oh, Rienzi ! should Heaven deem
Thy sacred mission done,
How glorious 'twere to die with thee,
My own, my worshipped one —
As, bathed in living light, the day
Dies with the setting sun !
MRS. ELIZABETH AKEES ALLEX.
BABYHOOD.
0, BABY, witli your marvellous eyes,
Clear as the yet un fallen dew,
Methinks you are the only wise, —
No change can touch you with surprise, —
Nothing is strange or new to you.
You did not weep, when faint and weak
Grew Love's dear hand within your hold,
And, when I pressed your living cheek
Close down to lips which could not speak,
You did not start to find them cold.
You think it morning when you wake,
That night comes when your eyelids fall,
That the winds blow, and blossoms shake,
And the sun shines for your small sake ;
And, queen-like, you accept it all.
0 you are wise ! you comprehend
What my slow sense may not divine, —
The sparrow is your fearless friend,
And even these pine-tassels bend
More fondly to your cheek than mine.
When in the summer woods we walk,
All ,-hy, sweet things commune with you :
You understand the robin's talk ;
And w,,»-ii a flower bends its stalk,
i'ou answer it with nod and coo.
Sometimes, with playful prank and wile,
4 As seeing what I cannot see,
You look into the air, and smile,
And murmur softly all the while
To one who speaks no word to me.
Is it because your sacred youth
Is free from touch of time or toil ?
1 cannot tell ; — perhaps, in sooth,
Clean hands may grasp the fair white truth
Withheld from mine through fear of soil.
I guard you with a needless care,
O child, so sinlessly secure !
I see that even now you wear
A dawning glory in your hair,—
And fittingly, for you are pure:
Purs to the heart's unsullied core,
As, conscious of its spotless trust,
The lily's temple is, before
The bee profanes its marble floor,
L •.•living a track of golden dust.
0, shield me with your light caress,
Dear heart, so stainless and so new!
Unconscious of your loveliness,
Your beauty, fresh and shadowless,
As is a'violet of its blue.
Perhaps through death our souls may gain
Your perfect peace, your holy rest.
Life has not vexed us all in vain,
If, after all this woe and pain,
We may be blessed babes again,
Cradled on Love's immortal breast !
GOING TO SLEEP.
THE light is fading down the sky,
The shadows grow and multiply ;
I hear the thrushes' evening song :
But I have borne with toil and wrong
So long, so long !
Dim dreams my drowsy senses drown, —
So, darling, kiss my eyelids down !
My life's brief spring went wasted by,
My summer ended fruitlessly ;
I learned to hunger, strive, and wait:
I found you, love, — O happy fate! —
So late, so late !
Now all my fields are turning brown, —
So, darling, kiss my eyelids down !
O blessed sleep ! O perfect rest !
Thus pillowed on your faithful breast,
Nor life nor death is wholly drear,
O tender heart, since you are here, —
So dear, so dear !
Sweet love ! my soul's sufficient crown !
Now, darling, kiss my eyelids down 1
LEFT BEHIND.
IT was the autumn of the year —
The strawberry-leaves were red and sere,
October's airs were fresh and chill,
When, pausing on the windy hill,
The hill that overlooks the sea,
You talked confidingly to me, —
Me, whom your keen artistic sight
lias not yet learned to read aright, *
Since I have veiled my heart from you,
And loved you better than you knew.
You told me of your toilsome past,
The tardy honors won at last,
The trials borne, the conquests gained,
The longed-for boon of Fame attained:
I knew that every victory
But lifted you away from me, —
That every step of high emprise
But left me lowlier in your eyes:
I watched the distance as it grew,
And loved you better than you kiiew.
402
MRS. ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.
You did not see the bitter trace
Of angui.-h sweep across my face;
You did not hear my proud heart beat
Heavy and slow beneath your feet:
You thought of triumphs .still unwon,
Of glorious deeds as yet undone ;
And 1, the while you talked to me,
I watched the gulls float lonesomely
Till lost amid the hungry blue,
And loved you better than you knew.
You walked the sunny side of fate ;
The wise world smiles, and calls you great ;
The golden fruitage of success
Drops at your feet in plenteousness ;
And you have blessings manifold, —
Renown and power, and friends and gold.
They build a wall between us twain
Which may not be thrown down again.
Alas! for I, the long years through,
Have loved you better than you knew.
Your life's proud aim, your art's high truth,
Have kept the promise of your youth ;
And while you won the crown which now
Breaks into bloom upon your brow,
]\Iy soul cried strongly out to you
Across the ocean's yearning blue,
While, unremembered and afar,
I watched you, as I watch a star
Tin (High darkness struggling into view,
Ai.d loved you better than you knew.
I used to dream, in all these years
Of patient faith and silent tears,
Th.it Love's strong hand would put aside
The barriers of place and pride, —
Would reach the pathless darkness through
And. draw me softly up to you.
Perchance the violets o'er my dust
Will half betray their buried trust,
And say, their blue eyes full of dew,
" yiie loved you better than you knew."
ENDURANCE.
How much the heart may bear, and yet not
break !
How much the flesh may suffer and not die!
I question much it" any pain or ache
Of soul or body brings our end more nigh :
Death chooses his own time ; till that is sworn,
All evils may be borne.
We shrink and shudder at the surgeon's
knife,
Each nerve recoiling from the cruel st.pcl
\\ hose edge seems searchiiiff ior the quiver
ing life,
Yet to our sense the bitter pangs reveal,
That still, although the trembling flesh be
torn,
This also can be borne.
We see a sorrow rising in our way,
And try to flee from the approaching ill ;
We seek some small escape ; we weep and
pray ;
But when the blow falls, then our hearts
are still ;
Not that the pain is of its sharpness shorn,
But that it can be borne.
We wind our life about another life ;
We hold it closer, dearer than our own :
Anon it faints and fails in deathly strife,
Leaving us stunned, and stricken, and
alone ;
But ah! we do not die with those we mourn, —
This also can be borne.
Behold, we live through all things, — fam
ine, thirst,
Bereavement, pain ; all grief and misery,
All woe and sorrow ; life inflicts its worst
On soul and body, — but \ve cannot die.
Though we be sick, and tired, and faint, and
worn, —
Lo, all things can be borne!
SINGING IN THE BAIN.
WHERE, the elm-tree branches by the rain
are stirred,
Careless of the shower, swings a little bird :
Clouds may frown and darken, drops may
fall in vain ; —
Little heeds the warbler singing in the rain!
Silence soft, unbroken, reigneth every
where, —
Save the rain's low heart-throbs pulsing on
the air, —
Save the song, which, pausing, wins no
answering strain ; —
Little cares the robin singing in the rain!
Not yet are the orchards rich with rosy snow,
Nor with dandelions are the fields aglow ;
Yet almost my fancy in his gong's sweet
flow
Hears the June leaves whisper, and the
roses blow !
Dimmer fall the shadows, mistier grows the
air, —
Still the thick clouds gather, darkening here
and there.
From their heavy fringes pour the drops
amain ;
Still the bird is swinging, singing in the
rain.
0 thou hopeful singer, whom my faith per
ceives
To a dove transfigured " bringing olive-
leaves, —
Olive-leaves of promise, types of joy to
be;—
How, in doubt and trial, learns my heart
of thee !
Cheerful summer prophet ! listening to thy
song,
How my fainting spirit groweth glad and
strong.
Let the black clouds gather, let the sun
shine wane,
If I may but join thee singing in the rain !
MRS. ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.
403
A SPRING LOVE-SONG.
THE earth is waking at the voice of May,
The new grass brightens by the trodden way,
The woods wave welcome to the sweet spring
day,
And the sea is growing summer bfue ;
But fairer, sweeter than the smiling sky,
Or bashful violet with tender eye,
Is she whose love for me will never die, —
I love you, darling, only you !
0, friendships falter when misfortunes frown,
The blossoms vanish when the leaves turn
brown,
The shells lie stranded when the tide goes
down,
But you, dear heart, are ever true.
The grass grows greenest when the rain
drops fall,
The vine clasps closest to the crumbling
wall,—
So love blooms sweetest under sorrow's
thrall,—
I love you, darling, only you !
The early robin may forget to sing,
The loving mosses may refuse to cling,
Or the brook to tinkle at the call of spring,
But you, dear heart, are ever true.
Let the silver mingle with your curls of gold.
Let the years grow dreary and the world
wax old,
But the love I bear for you will ne'er grow
cold, —
I love you, darling, only you !
THE AMBER ROSARY.
MY birthday ! I must keep it, as of old,
And wear some token of a holiday ;
For see the woods are gay with red and gold,
And autumn sings her merriest roundelay.
I have no heart for dainty robes to-day,
And flowers do not suit me any more ;
So, from the darkness where it "hides away,
I take this relic of the days of yore, —
Only an antique amber rosary,
Whose beads still hold the mellow light
of Rome,
Clasped by a cross of blackest ebony,
Fashioned by loving fingers here at home.
And as I lift again the chain and cross,
The bright beads seem a wreath of golden
days,
Ended too soon by black and bitter loss,
Made, gloomier still by their contrasting
rays.
0, liquidly the sunlight, niters through
These shining spheres of warm translucent
gold,
Changing to drops of rich and wondrous hue,
Like precious wine of vintage rare and old.
Ah me ! this rosary, in other lands,
Has learned more prayers than I shall ever
know, —
Its slow beads slipped and smoothed by pious
hands,
Whose pulses stopped a hundred years ago
It keeps an odor mystical and dim,
As of old churches, where the censer
swings, —
Where, listening to the echo-chanted hymn,
The sculptured angels fold their marble
wings.
Where through the windows melts the un
willing light,
And in its passage learns their gorgeous
stain,
Then bars the gloom with rays all rainbow
bright,
As human souls grow beautiful through
pain.
One birthday, — it might be a year ago,
Or fifty, or a thousand, — one who smiled
Counted these beads, and praised their mar
vellous glow,
Saying, " I bring a gift to you, dear child, —
" An amulet, not made of gems or gold,
But drops of light, imprisoned from above.
Gold were too heavy ; gems, too hard and
cold ;
And only amber suits the soul of love.
"What fitter birthday token could I give?
See how the clear orbs answer to the sun ?
I clasp them at your throat, and you shall live
A perfect golden year for every one ! "
" Then why the cross? " I asked. He sighed
and said,
"For possible sorrows." Ah, these useless
tears !
The hand which placed it here, now cold and
dead,
Forgets to twine for me the golden years.
Forgets to bless her waiting head, who wears
For his dear sake these amber beads
to-day, —
Forgets to make the cruel cross she bears
Grow lighter as the birthdays wear away.
Yet still the amber gleams, and unawares
Turns all to gold beneath its mellow ray ;
0 pure hearts, glowing with remembered
prayers,
Plead for her peace who has no heart to
pray!
OCTOBER.
THE door-yard trees put on their autumn
bloom,
Purple, and gold, and crimson rich and
strong,
That stain the light, and give my lonesome
room
An atmosphere of sunset all day long.
In giddy whirls the yellow elm-leaves fall,
The rifled cherry-boughs grow sere and
thinned,
404
MRS. ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.
Yet still the morning-glories on the wall
Fling out their purple trumpets to the
wind, —
So full but now of summer's triumph-notes,
The moth's soft wing their powdery sta
mens stirred,
The bee's rich murmur filled their honeyed
throats,
And the quick thrilling of the humming
bird.
In the long dreary nights of storm I hear
The windy woodbine beat against the pane,
Tivmbling and shuddering with cold and
fear,
Like one who seeks a shelter all in vain.
The sobbing rain deplores the sad decline
Of all which erst was fair, and sweet, and
young,
The tender fingers of the clambering vine
Are bruised against the trellis where they
clung.
Thus is my world dismantled, cold and bare ;
The winter threatens, lowering and
drear ; —
Where are the pattering feet, the shining
hair,
The eyes which made it always summer
here?
AT LAST.
AT last, when all the summer shine
That warmed life's early hours is past,
Your loving fingers seek for mine
And hold them close — at last — at last !
Not oft the robin comes to build
Its nest upon the leafless bough
By autumn robbed, by winter chilled, —
But you, dear heart, you love me now.
Though there are shadows on my brow
And furrows on my cheek, in truth, —
The marks where Time's remorseless plough
Broke up the blooming sward of Youth, —
Though fled is every girlish grace
Might win or hold a lover's vow,
Despite my sad and faded face,
And darkened heart, you love me now!
I count no more my wasted tears ;
They left no echo of their fall ;
I mourn no more my lonesome years ;
This blessed hour atones for all.
1 tVar not all that Time or Fate
-May bring to burden heart or brow, —
Strong- in the love that came so late,
Our souls shall keep it always now f
LAST.
FRIEND, whose smile has come to be
Vrery precious unto me,
'Though I know I drank not first
Of your love's bright fountain-burst,
Yet I grieve not for the past,
Bo you only love me last !
Other souls may find their joy
In the blind love of a boy :
Give me tbat which years have tried,
Disciplined and purified, —
Such as, braving sun and blast,
You will bring to me at last !
There are brows more fair than mine,
Eyes of more bewitching shine,
Other hearts more fit, in truth,
For the passion of your youth ;
But, their transient empire past,
You will surely love me last !
Wing away your summer-time,
Find a love in every clime,
Roam in liberty and light, —
I shall never stay your flight ;
For I know, when all is past,
You will come to me at last !
Change and flutter as you will,
I shall smile securely still ;
Patiently I trust, and wait,
Though you tarry long and late ;
Prize your spring till it be past,
Only, only love me last !
FORGOTTEN.
Ix this dim shadow, where
She found the quiet which all tired hearts
crave,
Now, without grief or care,
The wild bees murmur, and the blossoms
wave,
And the forgetful air
Blows heedlessly across her grassy grave.
Yet when she lived on earth,
She loved this leafy dell, and knew by name
All things of sylvan birth ;
Squirrel and bird chirped welcome, when she
came ;
But now, in careless mirth,
They frisk, and build, and warble all the
same.
From the great city near,
Wherein she toiled through life's incessant
quest
For weary year on year,
Come the far voices of its deep unrest
To touch her dead, deaf ear,
And surge unechoedo'er her pulseless breast.
The hearts which clung to her
Have sought out other shiines, as all hearts
must,
When Time, the comforter,
Has worn their grief out, and replaced their
trust ;
Not even neglect can stir
This little handful of forgotten dust.
Grass waves, and insects hum,
And then the snow blows bitterly across ;
Strange footsteps go and come,
Breaking the oew-drops on the starry moss
She lieth still and dumb,
Counting no longer either gain or loss.
MRS. ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.
405
Ah, well, — 'tis better so ;
Let the dust deepen as the years increase ;
Of her who sleeps below
Let the name perish, and the memory cease,
Since she has come to know
That which through life she vainly prayed
for, — Peace !
IN AN ATTIC.
TflTS is my attic room. Sit down, my friend.
My swallow's nest is high and hard to gain ;
The stairs are long and steep ; but at the end
The rest repays the pain.
For here are peace and freedom ; room for
speech
Or silence, as may suit a changeful mood :
Society's hard by-laws do not reach
This lofty altitude.
You hapless dwellers in the lower rooms
See only bricks and sand and windowed
walls ;
But here, above the dust and smoky glooms,
Heaven's light unhindered falls.
So early in the street the shadows creep,
Your night begins while yet my eyes be
hold
The purpling hills, the wride horizon's sweep,
Flooded with sunset gold.
The day comes earlier here. At morn I see
Along the roofs the eldest sunbeam peep ;
I live in daylight, limitless and free,
While you are lost in sleep.
I catch the rustle of the maple-leaves,
I see the breathing branches rise and fall,
And hear, from their high perch along the
eaves.
The bright-necked pigeons call.
Far from the parlors with their garrulous
crowds
I dwell alone, with little need of words ;
I have mute friendships with the stars and
clouds,
And love-trysts with the birds.
So all who walk steep ways, in grief and
night,
Where every step is full of toil and pain,
May see, when they have gained the sharpest
height,
It has not been in vain,
Since they have left behind the noise and
heat ;
And, though their eyes drop tears, their
sight is clear :
The air is purer, aiv.l the br >eze is sweet,
And the blue heaven more near.
OCTOBER TO MAY.
TIIE day that brightens half the earth
Is night to half. Ah, sweet,
One's m mrning is another's mirth, —
You wear your bright years like a crown,
While mine, dead garlands, tangle down
In chains about my feet.
The breeze which wakes the folded flower
Sweeps dead leaves from the tree ;
So partial Time, as hour by hour
He tells the rapid years, — eheu ! —
Brings bloom and beauty still to you,
But leaves his blight with me.
The sun which calls the violet up
Out of the moistened mould
Withers the wind-flower's fragile cup, —
For even Nature has her pets,
And, favoring the new, forgets
To love and spare the old.
The shower that makes the bud a rose
Beats off the lilac bloom ;
I am a lilac ; so life goes ;
A lilac that has outlived May ;
You are a blush-rose : well-a-day !
I pass, and give you room !
EVENING.
II AUK ! hear the sleet against the pane,
And hear the wild winds blow !
It chills me with a shuddering dread,
This heavy, heaping snow, —
I cannot bear that all night long
The drifts should deepen so.
0 darling, that this storm should beat
Upon thy lonesome bed !
0 darling-, that this drifting snow
Should heap above thy head,
And I not there to shelter tliee,
And bear the storm instead !
I I trim anew the glowing fire, —
The flames leap merrily ;
1 make the lamplight bright and clear,—
Thou art not here to see.
Ah, since I sit here all alone
What are they all to me ?
0 dreary hearth ! 0 lonesome life !
O empty heart and home !
It is not home to me, wherein
Thy dear feet never come,: —
There is no meaning' in the word
Since tjiy loved lips are dumb !
So, all in vain the bright flames dance,
The ruddy embers glow :
1 shiver in the mellow light,
Because, alas, I know
The snow-drifts heap above thy sleep,—
This heavy, heaping snow !
PROPHECY.
THERE 's a clasp upon my fingers,
There's a kiss upon my blow,
In my ear Love's breathing lingers,
But, alas, it is not thou !
Since I walk no more with thee,
0, the days have come to be
Dreary, dreary unto me ; —
Best beloved, where art thou ?
406
MRS. ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.
In these sweet, prophetic mornings,
\Vlien the brown buds load the bough,
And the air brings summer warnings,
All my heart cries, " Wlfereart tliou ? "
Still my heart, for evermore
Yearning toward ilie misty shore,
Kee]>s repeating o'er and o'er,
" Best beloved, where art tliou ? "
When my soul grows faint with pining,
And at death's behest I bow,
On some kindly breast reclining
1 shall sigh, " Would it were tliou !
Vn forgot ten, dearest, best,
Would that thy most faithful breast
Could have pillowed my last rest, —
O beloved, were it tliou ! "
Gentle voices breathe around me
Words with fondest meaning blent ;
Love's most tender care has crowned me
With all blessings but content ;
0 the blessed days of old !
0 the love too long untold !
0 the years so dark and cold,
And their burden, " Were it tliou ! "
"MY DEARLING."
MY Dearling !— thus, in days long fled,
In spite of creed and court and queen,
King Henry wrote to Anne Boleyn, —
The dearest pet name ever said,
And dearly purchased, too, I ween !
Poor child ! she played a losing game :
She won a heart, — so Henry said, —
But ah ! the price she gave instead !
Men's hearts, at best, are but a name :
She paid for Henry's with her head !
You count men's hearts as something worth?
Not I : were I a maid unwed,
I'd rather have my own fair head
Than all the lovers on the earth,
Than all the hearts that ever bled!
" My Dearling ! " with a love most true,
Having no fear of creed or queen,
I breathe that name my prayers between ;
But it shall never bring to you
The hapless fate of Anne Bolevn !
WHEN THE LEAVES ARE TURNING BROWN.
NEVKIJ is my heart so gay
In the budding month of May,
Never does it beat a tune
Halfsosweel in bloomy June,
Never knows such happiness
As on such a day as this,
When October dons her crown,
And the leaves are turning brown.
Breathe, sweet children, soft regrets
For the vanished violets ;
Sing, young lovers, the delights
Of the golden summer nights ; —
Never in the summer hours
On my way such radiance showers
As from heaven falls softly down,
When the leaves are turning brown.
Braid your girdles, fresh and gay,
Children, in the bloom of May ; "
Twist your chaplets in young June,
Maidens, — they will fade full soon;
Twine ripe roses, July-red,
Lovers, for the dear one's head ; —
I will weave my richer crown
When the leaves are turning brown !
CONSOLATION.
Now leave, O leave me ! I have stayed to
hear
All the vain comfortings your lips have
said, —
Wrell meant, but yet they fall upon my ear
As yellow leaves might whirl about my
head ; —
Now leave me with my dead.
I would not be ungrateful, friends ; but still
Your kind, condoling voices trouble me :
This aching need, which words can never fill,
Rejects your proffered comfort utterly,
As husks and vanity.
They are unwise physicians who would bind
A bleeding wound, and pour in wine and oil,
While yet the arrow-head remains behind ; —
This stab, whence yet the ruddy life-diops
. boil,
Mocks your unskillful toil.
You tell me that to him I mourn is given
Such bliss as makes this world seem poor
and dim ; —
Is there an angel in the whole of heaven,
In all the shining ranks of seraphim,
Can take my place to him ?
Can he be happy while I grieve and pine ?
Can he rejoice, and I in misery ?
Then he is changed, and is no longer mine ;
For he so loved me, that he could not be
Content away from me.
And yet you say he dwells in joy and peace,
Far from this dim and sorrowful estate,
And, when my earthly wanderings shall
cease,
Will come and meet me at life's outer gate :
'' Be strong," you say," and wait."
Would that I were like Stephen, and could
see,
What time the cruel stones bruise out my
soul,
The opening heavens, and angels waiting me!
Alas 1 I hear no homeward chariot-roll,
No welcome to the goal.
Ah me ! the red is yet upon my cheek,
And in my veins life's vigorous currents
play ;
Adown my hair there shines no warning
streak,
MRS. ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.
407
And the sweet meeting which you paint
to-day
Seems sadly far away.
Another tells me that he loves me still, —
Sees, hears, and guides me through life's
hurrying throng,
While I, despite my yearning sense and will,
Am blind and deaf, and do his deep love
wrong,
By weeping all day long.
What does it comfort me, if still he walks
Beside me all the while, invisibly ?
What does it help me, that a dear ghost
mocks
Blind eyes with unseen smiles ? I fail to see
What comfort it may be.
There is no balm. Though he may dwell in
bliss,
I sit in grief. It is the loss, the lack,
The absence, and the utter emptiness
Which kill me. Comfort ?— Find the grave-
ward track
And bring my darling back !
A DREAM.
BACK again, darling? O day of delight !
How I have longed for you, morning and
night !
Watched for you, pined for you, all the days
through,
Craving no boon and no blessing but you, —
Prayed for you, plead for you, sought you in
vain,
Striving forever to find you again, —
Counting all anguish as naught, if I might
Clasp you again as I clasp you to-night !
0, I have sorrowed and suffered so much
Since I last answered your lip's loving
touch, —
Through the night-watches, in daylight's
broad beams,
Anguished by visions and tortured by
dreams, —
Dreams so replete with bewildering pain,
Still it is throbbing in heart and in brain :
0, for I dreamed, —keep me close to your
side,
Darling, 0 darling ! — I dreamed you had died !
Dreamed that I stood by your pillow, and
heard
From your pale lips love's last half-uttered
word ;
And by the light of the May-morning skies
Watched your face whiten, and saw your
dear eyes
Gazing far into the Wonderful Land ;
Felt your fond fingers grow cold in my
hand ; —
"Darling," you whispered, "My darling!"
you said
Faintly, so faintly, — and then you were dead !
0 the dark hours when I' knelt by your grave,
Calling upon you to love and to* save, —
Pleading in vain for a sign or a word
Only to tell me you listened and heard, —
Only to say you remembered and knew
How all my soul was in anguish for you ;
Bitter, despairing, the tears that I shed,
Darling, O darling, because you were dead !
O the black days of your absence, my own !
0 to be left in the wide world alone !
Long, with our little one.clasped to my breast.
Wandered I, seeking for refuge and rest ;
Yet all the world was so careless and cold,
Vainly I sought for a sheltering fold ; —
There was no roof and no home for my head,
Darling, 0 darling, because you wrere dead !
Yet, in the midst of the darkness and pain,
Darling, I knew I should find you again !
Knew, as the roses know, under the snow,
How the next summer will set them aglow ;
So did I always, the dreary days through,
Keep my* heart single and' sacred to you
As on the beautiful day we were wed,
Darling, 0 darling, although you were dead !
0 the great joy of awaking, to know
1 did but dream all that torturing woe !
0 the delight, that my searching can trace
Nothing of coldness or change in your face !
Still is your forehead unfurrowed and fair ;
None of the gold is lost out of your hair,
None of the light from your dear eyes has
tied—
Darling, 0 how could I dream you were dead ?
Now you are here, you will always remain,
Never, O never to leave me again !
How it has vanished, the anguish of years !
Vanished ! nay, these are not sorio \vful
tears, —
Happiness only my cheek has impearled, —
There is no grieving for me in the world ;
Dark clouds may threaten, but I have no fear,
Darling, O darling, because you are here !
ANSWER ME.
IF you love me, friend, to-night,
Much and tenderly,
Let me rest my wearied head
Here upon your knee ;
And the while I question you,
Prithee answer me, —
Answer me !
Is there not a gleam of peace
On this tiresome earth ?
Does not one oasis cheer
All this dreary dearth ?
And does all this toil and pain
Give no blessing birth ?
Answer me !
Comes there never quiet, when
Once our hearts awake ?
Must they then for evermore
Labor, strive, and ache?
Have they no inheritance
But to bear — and break ?
Answer me 1
408
MRS ELIZABETH AKERS ALLEN.
THE SPARROW AT SEA.
AGAINST the baffling winds, with slow ad
vance,
One drear December day,
Up the vexed Channel, toward the coast of
France,
Our vessel urged her way.
Around the dim horizon's misty slopes
The storm its banners hung ;
And, pulling bravely at the heavy ropes,
The dripping sailors sung.
A little land-bird, from its home-nest warm,
Bewildered, driven, and lost,
With wearied wings, came drifting on the
storm,
From the far English coast.
Blown blindly onward, with a headlong speed
It could not guide or check,
Seeking some shelter in its utter rieed,
It dropped upon the deck.
Forgetting all its dread of human foes,
Desiring only rest,
It folded its weak wings, and nestled close
And gladly to my breast.
Wherefore, I said, this little nickering life,
Which now all panting lies,
Shall yet forget its peril and its strife,
And soar in sunny skies.
To-morrow, gaining England's shore again,
Its wings shall find their rest ;
And soon, among the leaves of some green
lane,
Brood o'er a summer.nest.
And when, amid my future wanderings,
My far and devious quest,
I hear a warbling bird, whose carol rings
More sweetly than the rest, —
Then I shall say, with heart awake and
warm,
And sudden sympathy,
' It is the bird I sheltered in the storm,
The life I saved at sea !"
But whrn the morning fell across the ship,
And storm and cloud were tied,
Tin- golden beak no longer sought my lip,
The wearied bird was dead.
The bitter cold, the driving wind and rain,
Were borne too many hours ;
My pity came too late and all in vain,
Sunshine on frozen flowers.
Thus many a heart which dwells in grief
and tears,
Braving and suffering much,
Bears patiently the wrong and pain of years,
But breaks at Love's first touch !
ROCK ME TO SLEEP.
BACKWARD, turn backward, O Time, in your
flight,
Make me a child again just for to-night !
Mother, come back from the echoless shore,
Take me again to your heart as of yore ;
Kiss from my forehead the furrows of care,
Smooth the few silver threads out of my
hair ;
Over my slumbers your loving watch keep ; —
Rock me to sleep, mother, — rock me to sleep !
Backward, flow back ward, Otide of the years!
I am so weary of toil and of tears, —
Toil without recompense, tears all in vain, —
Take them, and give me my childhood again !
I have grown weary of dust and decay, —
Weary of flinging my soul-wealth away ;
Weary of sowing for others to reap ; —
Rock me to sleep, mother, — rock me to sleep !
Tired of the hollow, the base, the untrue,
Mother, 0 mother, my heart calls for you !
Many a summer'the grass has grown green,
Blossomed and faded, our faces between :
Yet, with strong yearning and passionate
pain,
Long I to-night for your presence again.
Come from the silence so long and so deep ; —
Rock me to sleep, mother, — rock me to sleep !
Over my heart, in the .days that are flown,
No love like mother-love ever has shone ;
No other worship abides and endures. —
Faithful, unselfish, and patient like yours :
None like a mother can charm away pain
From the sick soul and the world-weary
brain.
Slumber's soft calms o'er my heavy lids
creep ; —
Rock me to sleep, mother, — rock me to sleep !
Come, let your brown hair, just lighted with
gold,
Fall on your shoulders again as of old ;
Let it drop over my forehead to-niglit,
Shading my faint eyes away from the light ;
For with its sunny-edged shadows once more
Haply will throng the sweet vir-ions of yore ;
Lovingly, softly, its bright billows sweep ; —
Rock me to sleep, mother, — rock me to sleep !
Mother, dear mother, the years have been
long
Since I last listened your JuFaby fong :
Sing, then, and unto my i-oul it i-hall s( t m
Womanhood's years have been only a die; in.
Clasped to your heait in a loving ( inbiace.
With your light lashes just sweeping my
face,
Never hereafter to wake or to weep ; —
Rock me to sleep, mother, — rock me to sleep
MES. ROLLIN COOKE,
(ROSE TERRY.)
DONE FOR.
A WEEK ago to-day, when red-haired Sally
Down to the sugar-camp came to see me,
I saw her checked frock coming down the
valley,
Far as any body's eyes could see.
Now I sit before the camp-fire,
And I can't see the pine-knots blaze,
Nor Sally's pretty face a-shining,
Though I hear the good words she says.
A week ago to-night I was tired and lonely,
Sally was gone back to Mason's Fort,
And the boys by the sugar-kettles left me
only ;
They were hunting coons for sport.
By there snaked a painted Pawnee,
I was asleep before the fire ;
He creased my two eyes with his hatchet,
And scalped me to his heart's desire.
There they found me on the dry tussocks
Bloody and cold as a live man could be ;
A hoot-owl on the branches overhead was
crying,
Crying murder to the red Pawnee.
They brought me to the camp-fire,
They washed me in the sweet white
spring ;
But my eyes were full of flashes,
And all night my ears would sing.
I thought I was a hunter on the prairie,
But they saved me for an old blind dog ;
When the hunting-grounds are cool and
airy,
I shall lie here like a helpless log.
I can't ride the little wiry pony,
That scrambles over hills high and low ;
I can't set my traps for the cony,
Or bring down the black buffalo.
I'm no better than a rusty, bursted rifle,
And I don't see signs of any other trail ;
Here by the camp-fire blaze I lie and stifle,
And hear Jim fill the kettles with his pail.
Its no use groaning. I like Sally,
But a Digger squaw wouldn't have me !
I wish they hadn't found me in the valley, —
It's twice dead not to see !
AFTER THE CAMANCHES.
SADDLE, saddle, saddle !
Mount and gallop away !
Over the dim green prairie,
Straight on the track of day,
Spare not spur for mercy,
Hurry with shout and* thong,
Fiery and tough is the mustang,
The prairie is wide and long.
Saddle, saddle, saddle !
Leap from the broken door
Where the brute Camanche entered
And the white -foot treads 110 more.
The hut is burned to ashes,
There are dead men stark outside,
But only a long dark ringlet
Left of the stolen bride.
Go, like the east-wind's howling !
Ride with death behind.
Stay not for food or slumber,
Till the thieving wolves ye find !
They came before the wedding,
Swifter than prayer or priest ;
The bridemen danced to bullets,
The wild dogs ate the feast.
Look to rifle and powder !
Fasten the knife-belt sure ;
Loose the coil of the lasso,
Make the loop secure ;
Fold the flask in the poncho,
Fill the pouch with maize,
And ride as if to-morrow
Were the last of living days !
Saddle, saddle, saddle !
Redden spur and thong ;
Ride like the mad tornado,
The track is lonely and long.
Spare not horse nor rider ;
Fly for the stolen bride ;
Bring her home on the crupper,
A scalp on either side !
DOUBT.
THE bee knows honey,
And the blossoms light,
Day the dawning,
Stars the night ;
The slow, glad river
Knows its sea :
Is it true, Love,
I know not thee *!
When the Summer
Brings snow-drifts piled,
When the planets
Go wandering wild,
When th-e old hill-tops
Valleys be, —
Tell me true, Love,
Shall I know thee ?
410
MRS. ROLLIN COOKE.
Where'er I wander,
By sea or shore,
A dim, sweet vision
Flies fast before,
Its lingering shadow
Floats over rne ; —
I know thy shade, Love,
Do I know thee ?
" Rest in thy dreaming,
Child divine !
What grape-bloom knoweth
Its fiery wine ?
Only the sleeper
No sun can see ;
He that doubteth
Knows not me."
CAIN.
HERE it found me—" Where is thy bro
ther?"
Out of the very heavens it fell,
Sharp as a peal of rattling thunder,
Then the echo leapt up from hell.
He — Jehovah — " Where is thy brother ? "
I knew, He knew — the devil laughed.
He that gave me the staff to fell him.
So the archer reviled the shaft !
Oh, my brother, my brother, my brother !
Thy blood panted and throbbed in me.
We were children of one mother,
Little children upon her knee.
Oh, my brother, my brother, my brother !
Sad-eyed, tender, good, and true.
Never more on hill or valley,
Never tracked through the morning dew.
I held up the staff before me,
Down it crashed on the gentle head.
One live look of wondering sorrow,
One sharp quiver— that was dead.
Thou ! Thou gavest me a brother-
Gave me a life to cast away —
Hast Thou in heaven such another ?
Hast Thou in heaven a sword to slay ?
Hasten Thou — " Where is thy brother? "
Voice my curst lips dare not name.
Hasten ! write with thy fiery finger
On my forehead the murderer's shame.
I am doomed — alone for ever.
Yet, so long as the slow years part,
Thou shalt brand new Cains with curses,
Not on the forehead, but in the heart !
CHE SARA SARA."
E walked in the garden
And a rose hung on a tree,
Red as heart's blood,
Fair to see.
" Ah. kind south-wind,
Bend it to me ! "
But the wind laughed softly,
And blew to the sea.
High on the branches,
Far above her head,
Like a king's cup
Round, and red.
" I am comely,"
The maiden said,
" I have gold like shore-sand,
I wish I were dead !
" Blushes and rubies
Are not like a rose,
Through its deep heart
Love-life flow's.
Ah, what splendors
Can give me repose !
What is all the world worth ?
I cannot reach my rose."
MIDNIGHT.
THE west -wind blows, the west- wind blew,
The snow hissed cruelly,
All night I heard the baffled cry
Of mariners on the sea.
I saw the icy shrouds and sail,
The slippery, reeling deck,
And white-caps dancing pale with flame,
The corpse-lights of the wreck.
The west- wind blows, the west- wind blew,
And on its snowy way,
That hissed and hushed like rushing sand,
My soul fled far away.
The snow went toward the morning hills
In curling drifts of white,
But I went up to the gates of God
Through all the howling night.
I went up to the gates of God ;
The angel waiting there, .
Who keeps the blood-red keys of Heaven,
Stooped down to hear my prayer.
" Dear keeper of the keys of Heaven,
A thousand souls to-night
Are torn from life on land and sea,
While life was yet delight.
" But I am tired of storms and pain ;
Sweet angel, let me in !
And send tome strong heart back again,
To suffer and to r-in."
The angel answered — stern and slow —
" How da rest thou be dead,
While God seeks dust to make the street
Where happier men may tread?
"Go back, and eat earth's bitter herbs,
Go, hear its dead-hell? toll ;
Lie speechless underneath their feet,
Who tread across thy soul.
" Go, learn the patience of the Lord
Whose righteous judgments wait ;
Thy murdered cry may cleave the ground,
But not unbar His gate."
MRS. ROLLIN COOKE.
411
Right backward, through the whirling
snow —
Back, on the battling wind,
My soul crept slowly to its lair,
The body left behind.
The west-wind blows, the west-wind blew,
There are dead men on the sea,
And landsmen dead, in shrouding drifts —
But there is life in me.
AT LAST.
THE old, old story o'er again —
Made up of passion, parting, pain.
He fought and fell, to live in fame,
But dying only breathed her name.
Some tears, most sad and innocent ;
Some rebel thoughts, but all unmeant ;'
Then, with a silent, shrouded heart,
She turned to life and played her part.
Another man, who vowed and loved,
Her patient, pitying spirit moved,
Sweet hopes the dread of life beguiled, —
The lost love sighed, — the new love smiled.
So she was wed and children bore,
And then her widowed sables wore ;
Her eyes grew dim, her tresses gray,
And dawned at length her dying day.
Her children gather, — some are gone,
Asleep beneath a lettered stone ;
The living, cold with grief and fear,
Stoop down her whispering speech to hear.
No child she calls, no husband needs.
At death's sharp touch the old wound bleeds :
" Call him ! " she cried, — her first love's
name
Leapt from her heart with life's last flame.
DECEMBER XXXI.
THERE goes an old Gaffer over the hill,
Thieving, and old, and gray;
He walks the green world, his wallet to fill,
And carries good spoil away.
Into his bag he popped a king ;
After him went a friar,
Many a lady, with gay gold ring,
Many a knight and squire.
He carried my true love far away,
He stole the dog at my door ;
The wicked old Gaffer, thieving and gray,
He'll never come by any more.
My little darling, white and fair,
Sat in the door and spun ;
He caught her fast by her silken hair,
Before the child could run.
He stole the florins out of my purse,
The sunshine out of mine eyes ;
He stole my roses, and, what is worse,
The gray old Gaffer told lies.
He promised fair when he came by,
And laughed as he slipped away,
For every promise turned out a lie ;
But his tale is over to-day.
Good-by, old Gaffer ! you'll come no more,
You've done your worst for me.
The next gray robber will pass my door,
There's nothing to steal or see.
NEW MOON.
ONCE, when the new moon glittered
So slender in the West,
I looked across my shoulder,
And a wild wish stirred my breast.
Over my white, right shoulder
I looked at the silver horn,
And wished a wish at even
To come to pass in the morn.
Whenever the new moon glittered,
So slender and so fine,
I looked across my shoulder,
And wished that wish of mine !
Now, when the West is rosy,
And the snow-wreaths blush below,
And I see the light white crescent
Float downward, soft and slow ;
I never look over my shoulder,
As I used to look before ;
For my heart is older and colder,
And now I wish no more !
INDOLENCE.
INDOLENT, indolent ! yes, I am indolent ;
So is the grass growing tenderly, slowly ;
So is the violet fragrant and lowly,
Drinking in quietness, peace, and content ;
So is the bird on the light branches swing
ing,
Idly his carol of gratitude singing,
Only on living and loving intent.
Indolent, indolent ! yes, I am indolent ;
So is the cloud overhanging the moun
tain ;
So is the tremulous wave of a fountain,
Uttering softly its silvery psalm.
Nerve and sensation, in quiet reposing,
Silent as blossoms the night-dew is cios-
mS'>
But the full heart beating strongly and
calm.
Indolent, indolent ! yes, I am indolent,
If it be idle to gather my pleasure
Out of creation's iiucoveted treasure,
Midnight and morning, by forest and sea,
Wild with the tempest's sublime exulta
tion,
Lonely in Autumn's forlorn lamentation,
Hopeful and happy with Spring and the
bee.
412
MRS. ROLL IN COOKE.
Indolent, indolent ! are ye not indolent ?
Thralls of the earth and its usages weary,
Toiling like gnomes where the darkness is
dreary,
Toiling- and sinning- to heap up your gold !
Stirling the heavenward breath of devo
tion,
Crushing Ihe freshness of every emotion ;
Hearts like the dead which are pulseless and
cold!
Indolent, indolent ! art thou not indolent ?
Thou who art living unloving and lonely,
Wrapt in a pall that will cover thee only,
Shrouded in selfishness, piteous ghost !
Sad eyes behold thee, and angels are
weeping
O'er thy forsaken and desolate sleeping;
Art thou not indolent ? art thou not lost ?
NEMESIS.
WITH eager steps I go
Across the valleys low,
Where in deep brakes the writhing serpents
hiss.
Above, below, around,
I hear the dreadful sound
Of thy calm breath, eternal Nemesis.
Over the mountains high,
Where silent snow-drifts lie,
And greet the red morn with a pallid kiss,
There, in the awful night,
I see the solemn light
Of thy clear eyes, avenging Nemesis I
Far down in lonely caves,
Dark as the empty graves
That wait our dead hopes and our perished
bliss,
Though to their depths I flee,
Still do my fixed eyes see
Thy pendant, sword, unchanging Nemesis !
Inevitable fate !
Still must thy phantoms wait
And mock my shadow like its fearful twin ?
Is there no final rest
In this doom-haunted breast?
Does thy terrific patience wait therein ?
" Aye ! wander as thou wilt.
The blood thy hand hath spilt
Stamps on thy brow its black, eternal
sign ;
Thyself thou canst not flee.
Writhe in thine agony !
Suffer! despair! thou art condemned — and
mine."
TRUTHS.
I WEAK a rose in my hair,
Because I feel like a weed;
Who knows that the rose is thorny
And makes my temples bleed?
If one gets to his journey's end, what matter
how galled the steed?
I gloss my face with laughter,
Because I cannot be calm ;
When you listen to the organ,
Do you hear the words of the psalm ?
If they give you poison to drink, 'tis better
to call it balm.
If I sneer at youth's wild passion.
Who fancies I break my heart ?
'Tis this world's righteous fashion,
With, a sneer to cover a smart.
Better to give up living than not to play
your part.
If I scatter gold like a goblin,
My life may yet be poor.
Does Love come in at the window
When Money stands at the door ?
I am what I seem to men. Need I be any
more?
God sees from the high blue heaven,
He sees the grape in the flower ;
He hears one's life-blood dripping-
Through the maddest, merriest hour ;
He knows what sackcloth and ashes hide in
the purple of power.
The broken wing of the swallow
He binds in the middle air ;
I shall be what I am in Paradise —
So, heart, no more despair !
Remember the blessed Jesus, and wipe his
feet with thy hair.
A CHILD'S WISH.
" BE my fairy, mother,
Give me a wish a day ;
Something, as well in sunshine
As when the rain-drops play."
" And if I were a fairy,
With but one wish to spare,
What should I give thee, darling,
To quiet thine earnest prayer ? "
" I'd like a little brook, mother,
All for my very own,
To laugh all day among the trees,
And shine on the mossy stone ;
" To run right under the window,
And sing me fast asleep,
With soft steps, and a tender sound
Over the grass to creep.
" Make it run down the hill, mother,
With a leap like a tinkling bell,
So fast I never can catch the leaf
That into its fountain fell.
" Make it as wild as a frightened bird,
As crazy as a bee,
And a noise like the baby's funny
laugh ;
That's the brook for me ! "
MRS. ROLLIN COOKE.
413
THE TWO VILLAGES.
OVER the river, on the hill,
Lieth a village white and still ;
All around it the forest -trees
Shiver and whisper in the breeze ;
Over it sailing shadows go
Of soaring hawk and screaming crow,
And mountain grasses, low and sweet,
Grow in the middle of every street.
Over the river, under the hill,
Another village lieth still ;
There I see in the cloudy night
Twinkling stars of household light,
Fires that gleam from the smithy's door,
Mists that curl on the river shore ;
And in the roads no grasses grow,
For the wheels that hasten to and fro.
In that village on the hill
Never is sound of smithy or mill ;
The houses are thatched with grass and
flowers ;
Never a clock to toll the hours ;
The marble doors are always shut,
You cannot enter in hall or hut ;
All the villagers lie asleep ;
Never a grain to sow or reap ;
Never in dreams to moan or sigh ;
Silent and idle and low they lie.
In that village under the hill,
When the night is starry and still,
Many a weary soul in prayer-
Looks to the other village there,
And weeping and sighing, longs to go
Up to that home from this below ;
Longs to sleep in the forest wild,
Whither have vanished wife and child,
And heareth, praying, this answer fall :
" Patience ! that village shall hold ye
all ! "
BLUE-BEARD'S CLOSET.
FASTEN the chamber !
Hide the red key ;
Cover the portal,
That eyes may not see.
Get thee to market,
To wedding and prayer ;
Labor or revel,
The chamber is there!
In comes a stranger —
" Thy pictures how fine.
Titian or Guido,
Whose is the sign ? "
Looks he behind them ?
Ah ! have a care !
"Here is a finer."
The chamber is there !
Fair spreads the banquet,
Rich the array ;
See the bright torches
Mimicking day ;
When harp and viol
Thrill the soft air,
Comes a light whisper :
The chamber is there!
Marble and painting,
Jasper and gold,
Purple from Tyrus,
Fold upon fold,
Blossoms and jewels,
Thy palace prepare :
Pale grows the monarch ;
The chamber is there!
Once it was open
As shore to the sea ;
White were the turrets,
Goodly to see ;
All through the casements
Flowed the sweet air ;
Now it is darkness ;
The chamber is there !
Silence and horror
Brood on the walls ;
Through every crevice
A little voice calls :
" Quicken, mad footsteps,
On pavement and stair ;
Look not behind thee,
The chamber is there ! "
Out of the gateway,
Through the wide world
Into the tempest
Beaten and hurled,
Vain is thy wandering,
Sure thy detpair,
Flying or staying,
The chamber is there !
THE ICONOCLAST.
A THOUSAND years shall come and go,
A thousand years of night and day,
And man, through all their changing show,
His tragic drama still shall play.
Ruled by some fond ideal's power,
Cheated by passion or despair,
Still shall he waste life's trembling hour,
In worship vain, and useless prayer.
Ah ! where are they who rose in might,
Who fired the temple and the shrine,
And hurled, through earth's chaotic night,
The helpless gods it deemed divine?
Cease, longing soul, thy vain desire !
What idol, in its stainless prime,
But falls, untouched of axe or fire,
Before the steady eyes of Time ?
He looks, and lo! our altars fall,
The shrine reveals its gilded clay,
With decent hands we spread the pall
And, cold with wisdom, glide away.
Oh ! where were courage, faith, and truth.
If man went wandering all his day
In golden clouds of love and youth,
Nor knew that both his steps betray ?
414
MHS. ROLLIN COOKE,
Come, Time, while here we sit and wait,
Be faithful, spoiler, to thy trust !
No death can further desolate
The soul that knows its god was dust.
SEMELE.
" For thfre bee none of those paean fables in whiche there lyeth
not H n, ore suMIe meanynge than ihe extern expression thereof
should iitt once signit'ye,"— Marr;a,'j<:» <•/ ye L'c.adc.
SPIRIT of light divine !
Quick breath of power,
Breathe on these lips of mine,
Persuade the bud to flower ;
Cleave thy dull swathe of cloud ! 110 longer
waits the hour.
Exulting, rapturous flame,
Dispel the night !
I dare not breathe thy name,
I tremble at. thy light,
Yet come! in fatal strength, — come, in all-
matchless might.
Burn, as the leaping fire
A martyr s shroud ;
Burn, like an Indian pyre,
With music fierce and loud.
Come, Power ! Love calls tliee, — come, with
all the god endowed !
Immortal life in death,
On these wrapt eyes,
On this quick, failing breath,
In dread and glory rise.
The altar waits thy torch,— come, touch the
sacrifice !
Come ! not with gifts of life,
Not for my good ;
My soul hath kept her strife
In fear and solitude;
More blest the inverted torch, the horror-
curdled blood.
Better in light to die
Thau silent live ;
Rend from these lips one cry,
One death-born utterance give,
Then, clay, in fire depart ! then, soul, in
heaven survive !
DEPARTING.
WEEP not for the dead ! they lie
Safe from every changing sky ;
Over them thou shalt not cry
Any more.
Weep for him whose lessening sail,
Borne upon an outward gale,
Sees ilie beacon faint and fail
On the shore.
vVeep not> for the dead : they sleep
Where no evil visions creep';
God hath sealed their slumber deep
Till his day.
Weep for him who fleeth fast
On a fierce and alien blast,
Torn from all the haunted past,
Far away.
He shall never see again
Home-lit valley, hill, or plain ;
He shall mourn and cry in vain
O'er the dead.
Wandering in a stranger-land,
None shall grasp his listless hand,
No sweet sister-nurse shall stand
By his bed.
Weep for him, and weep for those
Who shall never more unclose
Home's dear portals, nor repose
In its rest.
Foreign where their kindred dwell,
Strange where they have loved too well,
Home-sick as no speech can tell,
All unblest.
For the dead thou shalt not mourn,
He hath reached a peaceful bourne ;
Weep for him, the travel- worn,
All alone !
Life's long torture he must bear
Till his very soul despair,
Helpless both for cry or prayer ;
Make his moan !
LA COQUETTE.
You look at me with tender eyes,
That, had you worn a month ago,
Had slain me with divine surprise : —
But now I do not see them glow.
I laugh to hear your laughter take
A softer thrill, a doubtful tone, — •
I know you do it for my sake.
You rob the nest whose bird is flown.
Not twice a fool, if twice a child !
I know you now, and care 110 more
For any lie you may have smiled,
Than that starved beggar at your door.
He has the remnants of your feast ;
You offer me your wasted heart !
He may enact the welcome guest ;
I shake the dust off and depart.
If you had known a woman's grace
And pitied me who died for you,
I could not look you in the face,
When now you tell me you are " true."
True! — If the fallen s.eraphs wear
A lovelier face of fa Is*1 surprise
Than you at my unmoving air,
There is no truth this side the skies.
But this is true, that once I loved. —
You scorned and laughed to see me die ;
And now you think the heart so proved
Beneath your feet again shall lie !
I had the pain when you had power ;
Now mine the power, who reaps the pain?
You sowed the wind in that black hour;
Receive the whirlwind for vour gain !
MKS. ELIZABETH STODDAKD.
THE CHIMNEY-SWALLOW'S IDYL.
FROM where I built the nest for my first
young
In the high chimney of this ancient house
I saw the household fires burn and go down,
And know what was and is forever gone.
My dusky, swift-winged fledegelings, flying
far
To seek their mates in clustered eaves or
towers,
Would linger not to learn what I have
learned,
Soaring through air or steering over sea.
These single, solitary walls must fade ;
But I return, inhabiting my nest — •
A little simple bird, which still survives
The noble souls now banished from this
hearth ;
And none are here besides but she who
shares
My life, and pensive vigil holds with me.
No longer does she mourn ; she lives serene;
I see her mother's beauty in her face,
I see her father's quiet pride and power,
The linked traits and traces of her race ;
Her brothers dying, like strong sapling trees
Hewn down by violent blows prone in dense
woods,
Covered with aged boughs, decaying slow.
She muses thus : " Beauty once more abides ;
The rude alarm of death, its wild amaze
Is over now. The chance of change has
passed ;
No doubtful hopes are mine, no restless
dread,
No last word to be spoken, kiss to give
And take in passion's agony and end.
Tlr.'y cannot come to me, but in good time
I nil-ill rejoin my silent company,
And melt among them, as the sunset clouds
Melt in gray spaces of the coming night."
So she holds dear as I this tranquil spot,
And all the flowers that blow, and maze of
green.
The meadows da'sy-full, or brown and sear;
The shore which bounds the waves I love to
skim,
And dash my purple wings against the breeze.
When breaks the day I twitter loud and long,
To make her rise and watch the vigorous sun
Come from his sea-bed in the weltering deep,
And smell the dewy grass, still rank with
sleep.
I hover through the twilight round her eaves,
And dart above, before her, in her path,
Till, with a smile, she gives me all her mind ;
And in the deep of night, lest she be sad
In sleepless thought, I gtir me in my nest,
And murmur as I murmur to my young ;
She makes no answer, but I know she hears ;
And all the cherished pictures in her thoughts
Grow bright because of me, her swallow
friend !
BEFORE THE MIRROR.
Now, like the Lady of Shalott,
I dwell within an empty room,
And through the day, and through the night,
I sit before an ancient loom.
And like the Lady of Shalott,
I look into a mirror wide,
Where shadows come, and shadows go,
And ply my shuttle as they glide.
Not as she wove the yellow wool,
Ulysses' wife, Penelope ;
By day a queen among her maids,
But in the night a woman, she,
Who, creeping from her lonely couch,
Unravelled all the slender woof ;
Or with a torch she climbed the towers,
To fire the fagots on the roof !
But weaving with a steady hand
The shadows, whether 'false or true,
I put aside a doubt which asks,
"Among these phantoms what are you ?"
For not with altar, tomb, or urn,
Or long-haired Greek with hollow shield,
Or dark-prowod ship with banks of oars,
Or banquet in the tented field ;
Or Norman-knight in armor clad,
Waiting a foe where four roads meet ;
Or hawk and hound in bosky dell,
Where chime and page in secret greet ;
Or rose and lily, bud and flower,
My web is b'roidered. Nothing bright,
Is woven here : the shadows grow
•Still darker in the mirror's light !
And as my web grows darker too,
Accursed seems this empty room ;
I know I must forever weave
These phantoms by this hateful loom.
NOVEMBER.
MUCH have I spoken of the faded leaf ;
Long have I listened to the wailing wind,
And watched it ploughing through the heavy
clouds ;
For autumn charms my melancholy mind.
416
MRS. ELIZABETH STODDARD.
When autumn conies, the poets sing1 a dirge :
The year must perish ; all the flowers are
dead ;
The sheaves are gathered ; and the mottled
quail
Runs in the stubble, but the lark has fled !
Still, autumn ushers in the Christmas cheer,
The holly-berries and the ivy-tree :
Thev weave a chaplet for the Old Year's
heir;
These waiting mourners do not sing for me!
I find sweet peace in depths of autumn
woods,
Where grow the ragged ferns and rough
ened moss ;
The naked, silent trees have taught me this, —
The loss of beauty is not always loss !
"HALLO ! MY FANCY, WHITHER WILT THOU GO ? "
SWIFT as the tide in the river
The blood flows through my heart,
At the curious little fancy
That to-morrow we must part.
It seems to me all over,
The last words have been said ;
And I have the curious fancy
To-morrow will find me dead !
ON MY BED OF A WINTER NIGHT.
ON my bed of a winter night,
Deep in a sleep, and deep in a dream,
What care I for the wild wind's scream?
What to me is its crooked flight ?
On the sea of a summer's day,
Wrapped in the folds of a snowy sail,
What care I for the fitful gale,
Now in earnest, and now in play ?
What care I for the fitful wind,
That, groans in a gorge, or sighs in a tree ?
Groaning and sighing are nothing to me ;
For I am a man of steadfast mind.
THE HOUSE BY THE SEA.
TO-NIGHT I do the bidding of a ghost,
A ghost that knows my misery ;
In the lone dark I hear his wailing boast,
" Now shalt thou speak with me."
Must I go Iri.-k where all is desolate,
When- reigns the terror of a curse,
To knock, a beggar, at my father's gate,
That clo.sed upon a hearse ?
The old stone pier has crumbled in the sea ;
The tide flows through the garden wall ;
Wln-n- grew the lily, and where hummed
th;> bee,
Black sea- weeds rise and fall.
I see the empty nests beneath the eaves ;
No bird is near ; the vines have died ;
The orchard trees have lo-st the joy of leaves,
The oaks their lordly pride.
Of what avail to set ajar the door
Through which, when ruin fell, I fled ?
If on the threshold I should stand once more
Shall I behold the dead ?
Shall I behold, as on that fatal night,
My mother from the window start ?
When she was blasted by the evil sight
The shame that broke her heart 'I
The yellow grass grows on my sister's grave ;
Her room is dark — she is not there ;
I feel the rain, and hear the wild wind
rave —
My tears, and my despair.
A white-haired man is singing a sad song
Amid the ashes on the hearth —
" Ashes to ashes, I have moaned so long
I am alone on earth."
No more ! no more ! I cannot bear this pain ;
Shut the foul annals of my race ;
Accursed the hand that opejis them again,
My dowry of disgrace.
And so, farewell, thou bitter, bitter ghost !
When morning conies the shadows fly ;
Before we part, I give this merry toast,
The dead that do not die !
YOU LEFT ME,
You left me, and the anguish passed,
And passed the day and passed the night-
A blank in which my senses failed ;
Then slowly came a mental sight.
So plain it reproduced the hours
We lived as one — the books we read,
Our quiet walks and pleasant talks —
Love, by your spirit was I led?
Oh, love, the vision grows too dear :
I live in visions — I pursue
Them only ; come, your rival meet,
My future bring, it will be — you.
THE POET'S SECRET.
THE poet's secret I must know,
If that will calm my restless mind.
I hail the seasons as they go,
I woe the sunshine, brave the wind.
I scan the lily and the rose,
I nod to every nodding tree,
I follow every stream that flows,
And wait beside the rolling sea.
I question melancholy eyes,
I touch the lips of women fair ;
Their lips and eyes may make me wise,
But what I seek for is not there.
In vain I watch the day and night,
In vain the world through space may roll
I never see the mystic light,
Which fills the poet's happy soul.
To hear through life a rhythm flow,
And into song its meaning turn —
The poet's secret I must know : —
By pain and patience shall I learn ?
MRS. ELIZABETH STODDARD.
41'
A SUMMER NIGHT.
I FEEL the breath of the summer night,
Aromatic fire :
The trees, the vines, the flowers are astir
With tender desire.
The white moths flutter about the lamp,
Enamored with lig'iit ;
And a thousand creatures softly sing
A song to the night !
But I am alone, and how can I sing
Praises to thee ?
Come, Night ! unveil the beautiful soul
That waiteth for me.
THE HOUSE OF YOUTH.
THE rough north winds have left their icy
caves
To growl and group for prey
Upon the murky sea ;
The lonely sea-gull skims the sullen waves
All the gray winter day.
The mottled sand-bird runneth up and down,
Amongst the creaking sedge,
Along the crusted beach ;
The time-stained houses of the sea-walled
town
Are tottering on its edge.
An ancient dwelling, in this ancient place,
Stands in a garden drear,
A wreck with other wrecks ;
The Past is there, but no one sees a face
Within, from year to year.
The wiry rose-trees scratch the window-pane;
The window rattles loud ;
The wind beats at the door,
But never gets an answer back again,
The silence is so proud.
The last that lived there was an evil man ;
A child the last that died
Upon, the mother's breast.
It seemed to die by some mysterious ban ;
Its grave is by the side
Of an old tree, whose notched and
leaves
Repeat the tale of woe,
And quiver day and night,
Till the snow cometh, and a cold shroud
weaves,
Whiter than that below.
This time of year a woman wanders there —
They say from distant lands :
She wears a foreign dress,
With jewels on her breast, and her fair hair
In braided coils and bands.
The ancient dwelling and the garden drear
At night^know something more :
Without her foreign dress
Or blazing gems, this woman stealeth near
The threshold of the door.
scanty
The shadow strikes against the window pane;
She thrusts the thorns away :
Her eyes peer through the glass,
And down the glass her great tears drip, like
rain,
In the gray winter day.
The moon shines down the dismal garden
track,
And lights the little mound ;
But when she ventures there,
The black and threatening branches wave
her back,
And guard the ghastly ground.
What is the story of this buried Past ?
Were all its doors flung wide,
For us to search its rooms,
And we to see the race, from first to last,
And how they lived and died : —
Still would it baffle and perplex the brain,
But teach this bitter truth :
Man lives not in the past :
None but a woman ever comes again
Back to the house of Youth !
THE SHADOWS ON THE WATER REACH.
THE shadows on the water reach
My shadow on the beach ;
I see the dark trees on the shore,
The fisher's oar.
I met her by the sea last night
A little maid in white.
I shall never meet her more
On the shore.
Ho ! fisher, hoist your idle sail
And whistle for a gale ;
My ship is waiting in the bay,
Row away
EXILE.
MY days of city life give me no hope ;
They pass along, unheeding city ways,
To find a happy place that once was mine,
And meet a love which has forsaken me.
Blind in these stony streets, dumb in their
crowds,
What can I do but dream of other days ?
Whose is the love I had, and have not now ?
If it be Nature's, let her answer me.
It wanders by the blue, monotonous sea,
Where rushes grow, or follows all the sweep
Of shallow summer brooks and umber pools.
Or does it linger in those hidden paths
Where star-like blossoms blow among dea.l
leaves,
And dark groves murmur over darker shrubs,
Birds with their fledgelings sleep, and pale
moths flit ?
With sunset's crimson flags perhaps it goes,
And re-appears with yellow Jupiter,
Riding the West beside the crescent moon.
Comes it with sunrise, when the sunrise
floats
418
MRS. ELIZABETH STODDARD.
From Night's bold towers, vast in the East,
and gray
Till tower and wall flash into fiery elouds,
Moving along the verge, stately and slow,
Ordered by the old music of the spheres?
Perchance it trembles in October's oaks ;
Or, twining with the brilliant, berried vine,
Would hide the tender, melancholy elm.
Well might it rest within those solemn woods
Where sunlight never falls — whose tops are
green
With airs from heaven, — its balmy mists and
rains, —
While underneath black, mossy, mammoth
rocks
Keep silence with the waste of blighted
boughs.
If winter riots with the wreathing snow,
And ocean, tossing all his threatening plumes,
And winds, that tear the hollow, murky sky,
Can this, my love, which dwells no more
with me,
Find dwelling there, — like some storm-driven
bird
That knows not whence it flew, nor where to
%>
Between the world of sea, and world of
cloud,
A,t last drops dead in the remorseless deep ?
A SEA-SIDE IDYL.
I WANDERED to the shore, nor knew I then
What my desire, — whether for wild lament,
Or sweet regret, to fill the idle pause
Of twilight, melancholy in my house,
And watch the flowing tide, the passing sails;
Or to implore the air, and sea, and sky,
For that etennl passion in their power
Which souls like mine who ponder on their
fate
May feel, and be as they — gods to themselves.
Thither I went, whatever was my mood.
The sands,, the rocks, the beds of sedge, and
waves.
Impelled to leave soft foam, compelled
away, —
I saw alone. Between the East and West,
Along the beach no creature moved besides.
High on the eastern point a lighthouse
shone ;
Steered by its lamp a ship stood out to sea,
And vanished from its rays towards the deep,
While in the West, above a W:M> !.>d He,
An island-cloud hung in the emeuM sky,
Hiding pale Venus in its sombre bLutie.
1 wandered up and down the sands, I loit
ered
Among the rocks, and trampled through the
sedge ;
Bui F grew weary of the stocks and stones.
" 1 will go hence," I thought ; " the Elements
Have lost their charm ; my soul is dead to
night.
Oh passive, creeping Sea, and stagnant Air,
Farewell ! dull sands, and rocks, and sedge,
farewell."
Homeward I turned my face, but stayed my
feet.
Should I go back but to revive again
The ancient pain ? Hark ! suddenly there
came,
From over sea, a sound like that of speech ;
And suddenly I felt my pulses leap
As though some Presence were approaching
me.
Loud as the voice of "Ocean's dark -haired
king "
A breeze came down the sea, — the sea rose
high ;
The surging waves sang round me — this their
song :
" Oh, yet your love will triumph ! He shall
come
In love's wild tumult ; he shall come once
more, —
By tracks of ocean, or by paths of earth ;
The wanderer will reach you and remain."
The breakers dashed among the rocks, and
they
Seemed full of life ; the foam dissolved the
sands,
And the sedge trembled in the swelling tide.
Was this a promise of the vaunting Sea,
Or the illusion of a last despair?
Either, or both, still homeward I must go,
And that way turned, mine eyes, and thought
they met
A picture, — surely so, — or I wras mad.
The crimson harvest moon was rising full
Above my roof, and glimmered on my walls.
Within the doorway stood a man I knew —
No picture this. I sawr approaching me
Him I had hoped for, grieved for, and
despaired.
" My ship is wrecked," lie cried, " and I re
turn
Never to leave my love. You are my love V ''
" I too am wrecked," I sighed, "by lonely
years ;
Returning you but find another wreck."
He bent his face to search my own, an 1
spake :
" What 1 have traversed sea and land to find,
I find. For liberty I fought, and life,
On savage shores, and wastes of unknown
seas,
While waiting for this hour. Oh, think you
not
Immortal love mates with immortal love
Always? And now, at last, we learn this
love."
My soul was filling with a mighty joy
I could not show — yet must 1 >how my love
" From you whose will divided broke our
hearts
I now demand a different kiss than that
Which then you said should be our parting
kiss.
Given, I vow the past shall be forgot.
The kiss — and we are one! Give me the
kiss."
Like the dark rocks upon the sands he stood.
When on his breast I fell, and kissed his lips.
All the wild clangor of the sea was hushed; '
The rapid silver waves ran each to each,
MRS. ELIZABETH STODDARD.
419
Lapsed in the deep with joyous, murmured
sighs.
Years of repentence mine, forgiveness his,
To tell. Happy we paced the tranquil shores,
Till, between sea and sky we saw the sun,
And all our wiser, loving1 days began.
UNRETURN1NG.
Now all the flowers that ornament the grass,
Wherever meadows are and placid brooks,
Muot fall— the " glory of the grass" must
fall.
Year after year I see them sprout and
spread—
The golden, glossy, tossing butter-cups,
The tall, straight daisies and red clover
globes,
The swinging bell-wort and the blue-eyed
blade,
With nameless plants as perfect in their
hues —
Perfect in root and branch, their plan of life,
As if the intention of a soul were there:
I see them nourish as I see them fall !
But he, who once was growing with the
grass,
And blooming with the flowers, my little son,
Fell, withered— dead, nor has revived again !
Perfect and lovely, needful to my sight,
Why comes he not to ornament my days ?
The* barren fields forget their barrenness,
The soulless earth mates with these soulless
thing,-,
Why fchould I not obtain my recompense ?
The 'budding spring should bring, or sum
mer's prime,
At least a vision of the vanished child,
And let his heart commune with mine again,
Though in a dream — his life was but a dream ;
Then might 1 wait with patient cheerful
ness —
That cheerfulness which keeps one's tears
unshed,
And blinds the eyes with pain — the passage
slow
Of other seasons, and be still and cold
As the earth is when shrouded in the snow,
Or passive, like it, when the boughs are
stripped
In autumn, and the leaves roll everywhere.
And he should go again ; f or winter's snow,
And autumn's melancholy voice, in winds,
In waters, and in woods, belong to me —
To m:.' — a faded soul ; for, as 1 said,
The sense of all his beauty — sweetness comes
When blossoms are the sweetest ; when the
sea,
Sparkling and blue, cries to the £tm in joy,
Or, silent, pale, and misty waits the night,
Till the moon, pushing through the veiling
cloud,
Hangs naked in its heaving solitude :
When feathery pines wave up and down the
shore,
And the vast deep above holds gentle stars,
And the vast world beneath hides him from
me!
THE COLONEL'S SHIELD.
YOUR picture, slung about my neck,
The day we went a-field,
Swung out before the trench ;
It caught the eye of rank and file,
Who knew ''' The Colonel's Shield."
I thrust it back, and with my men
(Our General rode ahead)
We stormed the great redoubt,
As if it were an easy thing,
But rows of us fell dead !
Your picture hanging on my neck,
Up with my men 1 rushed, —
We made an awful charge :
And then my horse, " The Lady Bess,"
Dropped, and — my leg was crushed !
The blood of battle in my veins
(A blue-coat dragged me out) —
But I remembered you ;
I kissed your picture — did you know ?
And yelled, " For the redoubt ! "
The Twenty Fourth, my scarred old dogs,
Growled back, " He'll put us through;
We'll take him in our arms :
Our picture there — the girl he loves,
Shall see what we can do."
The foe was silenced — so were we.
I lay upon the field,
Among the Twenty-Fourth ;
Your picture, shattered on my breast,
Had proved " The Colonel's Shield."
MERCEDES.
UNDER a sultry, yellow sky,
On the yellow sand I lie ;
The crinkled vapors smite my brain,
I smoulder in a fiery pain.
Above the crags the condor flies ;
He knows where the red gold lies,
He knows where the diamonds shine ;-
If I knew, would she be mine ?
Mercedes in her hammock swings ;
In her court a palm-tree flings
Its slender shadow on the ground,
The fountain falls with silver sound.
Her lips are like this cactus cup ;
With my hand 1 crush it up ;
I tear its flaming leaves apart ; —
Would that I could tear her heart !
Last night a man was at her gate ;
In the hedge I lay in wait ;
I saw Mercedes meet him there,
By the fire-flies in her hair.
I waited till the break of day,
Then I rose and stole away;
But left my dagger in her gate; —
Now she knows her lover's fate !
420
MRS. ELIZABETH STODDARD.
THE BULL FIGHT.
ELEVEN o'clock :
Here are our cups of chocolate.
Montez will fig-lit the bulls to-day —
All Madrid knows that :
Queen Christina is going in state ;
Dolores will go with her little fan !
Lace up my shoe :
Put on my Basquina ;
Can you see my black eyes ?
I am Manuel's duchess.
In front of the box of the Queen and the
Duke
Dolores sits, flirting her fan ;
The church of St. Agnes stands on the right,
And its shadow falls on the picadors ;
On their old lean steads they prance in the
ring,
Hidalgo fashion, their hands on their hips.
"Ha-f Tor of Toro ! "
Good ! the horses are gored ;
Now for the men.
11 Ha! Toro! Torro ! "
Every man over the barrier !
Not so ; for there, the bull- fighter stands ;
Some little applause from the royal box,
And "Montez! Montez! from a thousand
throats !
The bull bows well, though snorting with
rage,
And his fore leg makes little holes in the
ground ;
But Montez stands still ; his ribbons don't
nutter !
Saints what a leap !
See his rosette on the bull's black horn ;
Montt-z is pale ; but his black eye shines,
When Dolores cries — " Kisses for Montez! "
Fie ! Manuel's duchess !
A minute longer the fight is done ;
The mule-bells tinkle, the bull rides off ;
Montez twirls a new diamond ring,
And the crowd go home for chocolate.
EL CAPITANO.
I FOUGHT wolves in the Pyrenees,
Now and then a man out of France ;
Sling your guitar, tap on the board,
Girls of the village, will you dance?
My heart snaps, chord after chord,
When you sweep the strings that way ;
Tie these roses around my gnn,
I'll be cock-of -the- walk to-day.
Surely I am a pious man,
Every day I go to mass.
There rides my lord — I'll whet my knife,
To-night we'll meet in Pajes' pass.
Ting-a-ling ! will you marry me,
Girl with the purple braided hair?
Hark ye, come and share my home,
Come to the wild guerilla's lair.
'Tis leagues beyond these orange groves,
In the caves of the Pyrenees ;
You'll love to hear their torrents roar
And the moan of the twisted trees.
Slip your fingers under my sash ;
Do you feel my mad heart beat ?
I swear it never loved before,
Look in my eyes — kiss me, sweet !
Senoritas, I kiss your feet ;
We fight. Senores — after to-day !
My horse is here — wre'll ride like fiends,
Spring up behind me, away, away !
ON THE CAMPAGNA.
STOP on the Appian Way,
In the Roman Campagna ;
Stop at my tomb,
The tomb of Cecilia Metella.
To-day as you see it,
Alaric saw it, ages ago,
When he, with his pale-visaged Goths,
Sat at the gates of Rome,
Reading his Runic shield.
Odin ! thy curse remains !
Beneath these battlements
My bones were stirred with Roman pride,
Though centuries before my Romans died :
Now my bones are dust ; the Goths are dust.
The river-bed is dry where sleeps the king,
My tomb remains !
When Rome commanded the earth
Great were the Metelli :
I was Metell^'s wife ;
I loved him — and I died.
Then with slow patience built he this me
morial :
Each century marks his love.
Pass by on the Appian Way
The tomb of Cecilia Metella ;
Wrild shepherds alone seek its shelter,
Wild buffaloes tramp at its base.
Deep is its desolation,
Deep as the shadow of Rome !
CHRISTMAS COMES AGAIN.
LET me be merry now, 'tis time,
The season is at hand
For Chrismas rhyme and Christmas chime
Close up, and form the band.
The winter fires still burn as bright,
The lamp-light is as clear,
And, since the dead are out of sight,
What hinders Christmas cheer ?
Why think or speak of that abyss
In which lies all my Past ?
High festival I need not miss,
While song and jest shall last.
We'll clink and drink on Christmas Eve,
Our ghosts .can feel no wrong ;
They revelled ere they took their leave —
Hearken, my Soldier's Song :
MRS. ELIZABETH STODDARD.
421
" The morning air doth coldly pass,
Comrades, to the saddle spring ;
The night more bitter cold will bring
Ere dying — ere dying.
Sweetheart, come, the parting glass,
Glass and sabre, clash, clash,
Ere dying — ere dying.
Stirrup-cup and stirrup-kiss —
Do you hope the foe we'll miss,
Sweetheart, for this loving kiss,
Ere dying — ere dying ! "
The feasts and revels of the year
Do ghosts remember long V
Even in memory come they here ?
Listen, my Sailor's Song :
" 0 my hearties, yo, heave ho !
Anchor's up in Jolly Ba^ —
Hey !
Pipes and swipes, hob and nob —
Hey!
Mermaid Bess and Dolphin Megg,
Paddle over Jolly Bay —
Hey!
Tars haul in for Christmas Day,
For round the'Varsal deep we go ;
Never church, never bell,
For to tell
Of Christmas Day.
Yo, heave ho, my hearties 0 !
Haul in, mates, here we lay —
Hey ! "
His sword is rustling in its sheath,
His flag furled on the wall ;
We'll twine them with a holly-wreath,
With green leaves cover all.
So clink and drink when falls the eve ;
But, comrades, hide from me
Their graves — I would not see them heave
Beside me, like the sea.
Let not my brothers come again,
As men dead in their prime ;
Then hold my hands, forget my pain,
And strike the Christmas chime.
LAST DAYS.
As one who follows a departing friend,
Destined to cross the great, dividing sea,
I watcli and follow these departing days,
That go so grandly, lifting up their crowns
Still regal, though their victor Autumn
comes.
Gifts they bestow, which I accept, return,
As irifts exchanged between a loving pair,
Who may possess them as memorials
Of pleasures ended. by the shadow — Death.
What matter which' shall vanish hence, if
both
Arc transitory — me, and these bright hours —
And of the future ignorant alike V
From all our social thralls I would be free.
L'^t care go down the wind — as hounds afar,
Within their kennels baying unseen foes,
Give to calm sleepers only calmer dreams.
Here will I rest alone : the morning mist
Conceals 110 form but mine ; the evening
dew
Freshens but faded flowers and my worn
face.
When the noon basks among the wooded
hills
I too will bask, as silent as the air
So thick with sun-motes, dyed like yellow
gold,
Or colored purple like an unplucked plum.
The Thrush, now lonesome — for her young
have flown —
May flutter her brown wings across my
path ;
And creatures of the sod witli brilliant eyes
May leap beside me, and familiar grow.
The moon shall rise among her floating
clouds —
Black, vaporous fans, and crinkled globes of
pearl-
And her sweet silver light be given to me.
To watch and follow these departing days
Must be my choice ; and let me mated be
With Solitude ; and memory and hope
Unite to give me faith that nothing dies ;
To show me always, what I prav to know,
That man alone may speak the word — Pare-
well.
MEMORY IS IMMOETAL.
TIME passed, as passes time with common
souls
Whose thoughts and wishes end with every
day ;
For whom no future is— whose present hours
Reveal no looming shade of that which was.
But Memory is immortal, for she comes
To me, from heaven or hell, to me, once
more !
As birds that migrate choose the ocean wind
That beats them helpless, while it steers
them home ;
So I was this way driven — I chose this way — •
Of old my dwelling-place, where all my race
Are buried. At first I was enchanted here ;
Impassible appeared the pall, the shroud ;
And in my spell, I trod the grassy streets,
Wherein the summer days mild oxen drew
The bristling hay, and in the winter snows
The creaking masts and knees for mighty
ships,
Whose hulls were parted on the coral reefs,
Or foundered in the depths -of Arctic nights.
I wandered through the gardens rank and
waste,
Wonderful once, when I was like the flowers ;
Along the weedy paths grew roses still,
Surviving empire, but remaining queens.
My mood established by the slumbrous
town —
(Slumber with slumber, dream with dream
should be)
I sought a mansion on the lonely shore,
From which, his feet made level with his
head,
MRS. ELIZABETH STODDARD.
Its occupant was gone. I lived alone.
Whoso, beneath this roof, had played his part
In lifeVdeep tragedy, not here again
Could be rehearsed its scenes of love or hate.
Ui)on the ancient walls my pictures hung —
Of men and women, strong and beautiful,
Whose shoulders pushed along the world's
great wheel :
Landscapes, where cloud and mountain rose
as one,
Where rivers crept in secret vales, or rolled
Past city walls, whose towers and palaces
By slaves were builded, and by princes fallen!
And books whose pages ever told one tale,
The tale of human love, in joy or pain,
The seed of our last hope — Eternity.
Days glided by, this mirage cheated all ;
Morn came, eve went, and we were tranquil
still.
If form, and sound, and color fail to show,
Bv poet's, painter's, sculptor's noble touch,
The subtle truth of Nature, can I tell
How Nature poised my mind 111 light and
shade ?
But memory is immortal, and to me
She advanced, silent, slow, a mutHed shape.
One moonlight night, I walked through long
white lanes ;
The sky and sea were like a frosted web;
The air was heavy with familiar scents,
Which travelled down the wind, I knew
from where —
The fragrance of grove of Northern pines.
Mv feet were hastening thither — and my
heart ?
At last I stood before a funeral mound,
From which I tied when vanished love and
life-
Long years ago— fled from my father's house ;
Banished myself, to banish him I loved —
His broken history and his early grave.
And in the moonlight Memory floated on,
Immortal, with my now immortal Love !
THE MESSAGE.
To you, my comrades, whether far or near,
1 send this message. Let our past revive;
Come, sound reveille to our hearts once more.
Expecting, I shall wait till at my door
1 see you enter, each and every one
Tumultuous, eager all, with clamorous
speech,
To hide my stammering welcome and my
tears.
I am no host carousing long and late,
Enticing guests with epicurean hints;
Nor am 1 Timon, sick of this sad world,
Who, jesting, cries, " The sky is overhead.
And underneaih that famous rest, the earth :
Show ine the man who can have more at last."
Without, the thunder of the city rolls ;
Withiu, the quiet of the student reigns.
There is a change. Time was a childish
voice,
Sweet as the lark's when from her nest she
soars,
Thrilled over all, and vanished into heaven.
Music once triumphed here : the skillful hand
Of him who rarely struck the keys, and woke
My soul in harmony grand as his own,
Is folded on his breast, my soldier love.
Here hangs his portrait, under it, his sword ;
He served his country, and his grave's afar.
Dread not this place as one to relics given,
His w*ho long wandering in foreign lands,
Though I have decked wtili amaranth my
wall,
The testimony of a later loss —
Then dying, crossed the sea to die with me.
Behold the sunrise and the morning clouds
On yonder canvas, misty mountain-peaks —
The simple grandeur of a perfect art !
Behold these vivid woods, that gleam beside
The happy vision of an autumn eve,
When red leaves fall, and redder sunsets
fade !
The world grows pensive sinking into night,
Whose melancholy space hides sighing
winds :
Can they reply to sadder human speech ?
What centuries are counted here — my books !
Shadows of mighty men ; the chorus, hark !
The antique chant vibrates, and Fate
compels !
Comrades, return ; the midnight lam]) shall
gleam
As in old nights ; the chaplets woven then —
Withered, perhaps, by time — may grace us
vet ;
The laurel faded is the laurel still,
And some of us are heroes to ourselves.
And amber wine shall ilow ; the blue smoke
wreathe
In droll disputes, with metaphysics mixed ;
Or float as lightly as the quick-spun verse,
Threading the circle round from thought to
thought,
Sparkling and fresh as is the airy web
Spread on the hedge at morn in silver dew.
The scent of roses you remember well ;"
In the green vases they shall bloom again.
And me — do you remember? I remain
Unchanged, I think ; though one 1 saw like
me
Some years ago, with hair that was not white;
And she was with you then, as brave a soul
As souls can be whom Fate has not ap
proached.
But seek and find me now, unchanged or
changed,
Mirthful in tears, and in my laughter sad.
MKS. JULIA C. E. DOER.
OVER THE WALL.
I KNOW a spot where the wild vines creep,
And the coral moss-cups grow,
And where, at the foot of the rocky steep;
The -sweet blue violets blow.
There all day long, in the summer time,
You may hear the river's dreamy rhyme ;
There all day long does the honey-bee
Murmur and hum in the hollow-tree.
And there the feathery hemlock makes
A shadow cool and sweet,
While from its emerald wing it shakes
Rare incense at your feet.
There do the silvery lichens cling,
There does the tremulous harebell swing ;
And many a scarlet berry shines
Deep in the green of the tangled vines.
Over the wall at dawn of day,,
Over the wall at noon,
Over the wall when the shadows say
That night is coming soon,
A little maiden with laughing eyes
Climbs in her ea<>'er haste, and hies
Down to the spot where the wild vines
creep,
And violets bloom by the rocky steep.
All wild things love her. The murmuring
bee
Scarce stirs when she draws near,
And sings the bird in the hemlock -tree
Its sweetest for her ear.
The harebells nod as she passes by,
The violet lifts its calm blue eye, *
The ferns bend lowly her steps to greet,
And the mosses creep to her dancing feet.
Up in her pathway seems to spring-
All that is sweet or rare, —
Chrysalis quaint, or the moth's bright wing,
Or flower-buds strangely fair.
She watches the tiniest bird's-nest hid
The thickly -clustering leaves amid ;
And the small brown tree-toad on her arm
Quietly hops, and fears no harm.
Ah, child of the laughing eyes, and heart
Attuned to Nature's voice !
Thou hast found a bliss that will ne'er de
part
While earth can say, " Rejoice ! "
The years must come, and the years must
go;
But the flowers will bloom, and the breezes
blow,
And birds and butterfly, moth and bee,
Bring on their swift wings joy to thee !
"EARTH TO EARTH."
NOT within yon vaulted tomb,
With its darkness and its gloom,
With its murky, heavy air,
And the silence brooding there,
Lay me, love, when I must be
Hidden far away from thee.
Open not the iron door,
Oped so often in days of yore ;
Place me not beside the dead,
Whose companionship I dread,
Where the phantoms come and go,
Bending o'er the coffins low.
But when one with icy breath
In my ear has whispered " death,"
When the heart thy voice can thrill,
Has grown pulseless, cold, and still,
Kneel beside me, o'er me bow,
Press thy last kiss on my brow.
Lay me then to dreamless rest,
With the sod above my breast,
In some quiet, sheltered spot,
Peaceful as has been our lot,
Since our solemn vows were said
On the day when we were wed !
Let the sunlight round me play
Through the long, bright summer day ;
Let old trees their branches wave
O'er my green and grassy grave,
While the changing shadows flit
In strange beauty over it.
Plant a white rose at my feet,
Or a lily fair and sweet,
With the humble mignonnette
And the blue-eyed violet.
So beside me, all day long,
Bird and bee shall weave their song.
Then methinks at eventide,
With our children by thy side,
Darling ! thou wilt love to come
To my calm and quiet home ;
Thou wilt feel my presence there,
Filling all the silent air.
Nearer will I seem to thee.
Sleeping in the sunlight free,
Than in yonder vaulted tomb.
With its darkness and its gloom.
" Earth to earth and dust to dust "
Yield thou, love, in solemn trust,
When our last farewell is said,
And thy wife is with the dead !
434
MRS. JULIA C. R. DORR.
YESTERDAY AND TO-DAY.
BUT yesterday among us here,
One with ourselves in hope and fear :
Joying like us in little things,
The sheen of gorgeous insect wings,
The song of bird, the hum of bee,
The white foam of the heaving sea.
Hut yesterday your simplest speech,
Your lightest breath, our hearts could reach ;
Your very thoughts were ours. Our eyes
Found in your own no mysteries.
Your griefs, your joys, your prayers, we
knew,
The hopes that with your girlhood grew,
lint yesterday we dared to say,
' 'Twere better you should walk this way,
Or that, dear child ! Do thus, or so ;
Older and wiser we, you know."
We gave you flowers and curled your hair,
And brought new robes for you to wear.
To-day how far away thou art !
In all thy life we have no part.
Hast thou a want ? We know it not ;
Utterly parted from our lot,
The veriest stranger is to thee
All those who loved thee best can be.
Deaf to our calls, our prayers, our cries,
Thou dost not lift thy heavy eyes ;
Nor heed the tender words that flow
From lips whose kisses thrilled thee so
But yesterday ! To-day in vain
We wait for kisses back again.
To-day no awful mystery hid
The dark and mazy past amid
Is half so great as*this that lies
Beneath the lids of thy shut eyes,
And in those frozen lips of stone,
Impassive lips, that smile nor moan.
But yesterday with loving care
We petted, praised thee, called thee fair;
To-day, oppressed with awe, we stand
Before that ring-unfettered hand,
And scarcely dare to lift one tress
In mute and reverent caress.
But yesterday with us. To-day,
Where thou art dwelling, who' can say ?
In heaven? But where? Oh! for some
spell
To make thy tongue this secret tell !
To break the silence strange and deep,
That thy sealed lips so closely keep !
In vain — in vain ! But yesterday
So quick to answer and obey ;
To-day, unmoved by word or tear,
A creature of another sphere,
Thou heedest us no more than they
Who passed before the Flood away !
AGNES.
AGXES ! Agnes ! is it thus
Thou, at last, dost come to us ?
From the land of balm and bloom,
Blandest airs and sweet perfume,
Where the jasmine's golden stars
Glimmer soft through emerald bars.
And the fragrant orange flowers
Fall to earth in silver showers,
Agnes ! Agnes !
With thy pale hands on thy breast,
Comest thou here to take thy rest V
Agnes ! Agnes ! o'er thy grave
Loud the winter winds will rave,
And the snow fall fast around,
Heaping high thy burial mound ;
Yet, within its soft embrace,
Thy dear form and earnest face,
Wrapt away from burning pain,
Ne'er shall know one pang again.
Agnes ! Agnes !
Never more shall anguish vex thee,
Never more shall care perplex thee.
Agnes ! Agnes ! wait, ah ! wait
Just one moment at the gate,
Ere your poor feet enter in,
Where is neither pain nor sin.
Thou art blest, but how shall we
Bear the pang of losing thee ?
Thou art safe, but round us roll
Billows which o'erwhelm the soul.
Agnes ! Agnes !
What if we should lose our way
In the darkness where we stray ?
Agnes ! Agnes ! turn thine ear
From the anthems swelling clear ;
Passing sweet are they we know,
While our words are weak and low ;
But we love thee ! ah ! how well
Angel tongue could never tell ;
List ! ice love thee ! By that word
Once thy heart of hearts was stirred.
Agnes ! Agnes !
By. that love we bid thee wait
Just one moment at the gate !
Agnes ! Agnes ! No ! Pass on
To the heaven that thou hast won !
By thy life of brave endeavor,
Up the heights aspiring ever,
Whence thy voice, like clarion clear,
Rang out words of lofty cheer, —
By thy laboring not in vain,
By thy martyrdom of pain,
Our Saint Agnes —
From our yearning sight pass on
To the Rest that thou hast won !
UNDER THE PALM-TREES.
WE were children together, you and I,
AVe trod the same paths in davs of
old ;
Together we watched the sunset sky,
And counted its bars of massive gold.
And when from the dark horizon's brim
The moon stole up with its silver rim,
And slowly sailed through the fields of air,
We thought there was nothing on earth so
fair.
MRS. JULIA C. R. DORR.
425
You walk to-night where the jasmines grow,
And the Cross looks down from, the tropic
skies ;
Where the spicy breezes softly "blow,
And the slender shafts of the palm-trees
rise.
You breathe the breath of the orange flow
ers,
And the perfumed air of the myrtle bowers ;
You pluck the acacia's golden balls,
And mark where the red pomegranate
falls.
I stand to-night on the breezy hill,
Where the pine-trees sing as they sang of
yore ;
The north star burneth clear and still,
And the moonbeams silver your father's
door.
I can see the hound as he lies asleep,
In the shadow close by the old well-sweep,
And hear the river's murmuring flow,
As we two heard it long ago.
Do you think of the firs on the mountain
side,
As you walk to-night where the palm-
trees grow ?
Of the brook where the trout in the dark
ness hide ?
Of the yellow willows waving slow ?
Do you long to drink of the crystal spring,
In the dell where the purple harebells
swing ?
Would your pulses leap could you hear once
more
The sound of the flail on the threshing-
floor ?
All ! the years are long, and the world is
wide,
And the salt sea rolls our hearts between ;
And never again at eventide
Shall we two gaze on the same fair scene.
But under the palm-trees wandering slow,
You think of the spreading elms I know ;
And you deem our daisies fairer far
Than the gorgeous blooms of the tropics
are !
THE LAST OF SIX.
COME in ; you are welcome, neighbor ; all
day I've been alone,
And heard the wailing, wintry wind sweep
by with bitter moan ;
And to-night beside my lonely fire, I mutely
wonder why
I, who once wept as others weep, sit here
with tearless eye.
To-day this letter came to me. At first I
could not brook,
Upon the unfamiliar lines by strangers pen
ned, to look ;
The dread of evil tidings shook my soul with
wild alarm, —
But Harry's in the hospital, and has only
lost an arm.
He is the last — the last of six brave boys as
e'er were seen !
How short, "to memory's vision, seem the
years that lie between
This hour and those most blessed ones, when
round this hearth's bright blaze
They charmed their mother's heart and eye
with all their pretty ways.
My William was the eldest son, and he was
first to go.
It did not at all surprise me, for I knew it
would be so,
From that fearful April Sunday when the
news from Sumter came,
And his lips grew white as ashes, while his
eyes were all aflame.
He sprang to join the three months' men. I
could not say him nay,
Though my heart stood still within me when
I saw him march away ;
At the corner of the street he smiled, and
waved the flag he bore ; —
I never saw him smile again — he was slain
at Baltimore.
They sent his body back to me, and as we
stood around
His grave, beside his father's, in yonder
burial ground,
John laid his hand upon my arm and whis
pered, " Mother dear,
I have Willy's work and mine to do. I can
not loiter here."
I turned and looked at Paul, for he and
John were twins, you know,
Born on a happy Christmas, four-and-twenty
years ago ;
I looked upon them both, while my tears fell
down like rain,
For I knew what one had spoken, had been
spoken by the twain.
In a month or more they left me, — the merry,
handsome boys,
Who had kept the old house ringing with
their laughter, fun, and noise.
Then James came homo to mind the farm ;
my younger sons were still
Mere children, at their lessons in the school-
house on the hill.
0 days of weary waiting ! 0 days of doubt
and dread !
1 feared to read the papers, or to see the lists
of dead ;
But when full many a battle storm had left
them both unharmed,
I taught my foolish heart to think the
double lives were charmed.
Their colonel since has told me that no
braver boys than they
Ever rallied round the colors, in the thick
est of the fray ;
Upon the wall behind you their swords are
hanging still,—
For John was killed at Fair Oaks, and Paul
at Malveru Hill.
MRS. JULIA C. R. DORR.
Then came the dark days, darker than any
known before ;
There was another call for men, — " three
hundred thousand more ; "
I saw the cloud on Jamie's brow grow deep
er day by dav.
I shrank before the impending blow, and
scarce had strength to pray.
And yet at last I bade him go, while on my
cheek and brow
His loving tears and kisses fell ; I feel them
even now,
Though the eyes that shed the tears, and the
lips so warm on mine
Are hidden under southern sands, beneath a
blasted pine !
He did not die 'mid battle-smoke, but for a
weary year
He languished in close prison walls, a prey
to hope and fear ;
I dare not trust myself to think of the fruit
less pangs he bore,
My brain grows wild when in my dreams I
count his sufferings o'er.
Only two left ! I thought the worst was
surely over then ;
But lo ! at once my school-boy sons sprang
up before me — men !
They heard their brothers' martyr blood call
from the hallowed ground ;
A loud, imperious summons that all other
voices drowned.
1 did not say a single word. My very heart
seemed dead.
What could I do but take the cup, and bow
my weary head
To drink the bitter draught again ? I dared
not hold them buck ;"
I would as soon have tried to check the
whirlwind on its track.
You know the rest. At Cedar Creek my
Frederick bravely fell ;
They say his young arm did its work right
nobly and right well ;
His comrades breathe the hero's name with
mingled love and pride ;
I miss the gentle blue-eyed boy, who frol
icked at my side.
For me, I ne'er shall weep again. I think
my heart is dead.
I, who could weep for lighter griefs, have
now no tears to shed.
But read this letter, neighbor. There is
nothing to alarm.
For Harry's in the hospital, and has only
lost an arm !
WAITING FOR LETTERS.
COUNTING the minutes all the day long,
Minutes that creep with the 'pace of a
snail ;
Deaf to the Bobolink's jubilant son«-,
Deaf to the Whippowil's pitiful wail !
Out in the garden red roses are blowing,
Down by the hedgerow are violets growing,
Daisies their dainty Avhite blossoms are
showing,
But the girl's heart bitter anguish is know
ing.
Striving to work, for there's work to be
done, —
Hands must be busy, though hearts bleed
and break, —
Lifting up tear-laden eyes to the sun,
Ah ! the long day will not speed for her
sake ;
How the clock ticks on, unresting, unhast-
i"g,
Never a single beat staying or wasting ;
| Steady as fate, though our souls may be
draining
Cups where the bitter alone is remaining !
But the day wanes, as the longest day will ;
Slowly the golden light fades from the
west,
All the green valleys lie breathless and still,
Birds cease their trilling and winds are at
rest.
Hark ! A low sound as of far-away thunder !
'Tis the- rush of the train as it sweeps along
under
The crest of the mountains that, parting
asunder,
Seem to shrink back from this demon-eyed
wonder !
Ah, how her pulses throb ! Silent and pale
Now stands she waiting — the mail has
come in !
Waiting for letters. But watching must
must fail,
And hope dream in vain of the bliss that
has been ;
Down where the southern pines sigh in the
gloaming,
Still lie her lover's feet, weary of roaming ;
Never again shall the heart of the maiden
Hail his white missives with love overladen !
COMING HOME.
WHEN the winter winds were loud,
And Earth slept in snowy shroud,
Oft our darling wrote to us, —
And the words ran ever thus, —
" I am coining in the spring !
With the Mayflower's blossoming,
With the young leaves on the tree,
O my dear ones, look for me ! "
And she came. One dreary day,
When the skies were dull and gray,
Softly through the open door
Our beloved came once more.
Came with folded hands that lay
Very quietly alway, — •
Came with heavy-lidded eyes,
Lifted not in glad surprise.
Not a single word she spoke ;
Laugh nor sigh her silence broke
MRS. JULIA C. R. DORR.
427
As across the quiet room,
Darkening in the twilight gloom,
Oil she passed in stillest guise,
Calm as saint in Paradise,
To the spot where — woe betide ! —
Four years since she stood a bride.
Then, you think, we sprang to greet
her, —
Sprang with outstretched hands to meet
her,
Clasped in our arms once more,
As in happy days of yore ;
Poured warm kisses on her cheek,
Passive lips, and forehead meek,
Till the barrier melted down
That had thus between us grown.
Ah, no !— Darling, did you know
When we bent above you so?
When our tears fell down like rain,
And our hearts were wild with pain ?
Did you pity us that day,
Even as holy angels may
Pity mortals here below,
While they wonder at their woe ?
Who can tell us ? Word nor sign
Came from those pale lips of thine ;
Loving heart and yearning breast
Lay in coldest, calmest rest.
Is thy Heaven so very fair
That thou dost forget us there?
Speak, beloved ! Woe is me
That in vain, I call on thee !
Some time — but not yet — I know
Time will check the bitter flow
Of our tears. But never more
Will Earth wear the smile she wore,
Wear the golden glow that flung
Light the dreariest paths among,
Ere that one small grave was made
Underneath the elm-tree's shade.
HIDDEN AWAY.
HIDDEN away beneath the sod !
0 my darling, can this be true?
In the pleasant paths your feet have trod
Must I look in vain, henceforth, for you ?
Will the summers come, and the summers
go?
Will Earth rejoice in her robes of green ?
Will roses blow, while thy cheek's young
glow
And thine eyes' soft smiling ne'er are
seen ?
Hidden away three months ago !
Only three months ! but how long it seems
Since that dreary day when the clouds hung
low.
And the wild rains flooded the swollen
streams !
It was meet that the sombre skies should
weep,
And the hills that you loved be black as
night,
When the dreamless sleap of the grave so
deep,
Wrapped you away from our yearning
sight !
I know that Earth is as fair to-day,
As fresh and fair as she was last June,
When the wind in the maple-bows alway
Seemed to murmur a pleasant tune ;
The bending skies are as blue, I trow,
The young leaves dance in their merry
glee,
The stars still glow, and the bright streams
flow, —
What have we lost then ?— Only thee !
Only our best and our fairest, laid
Out of our sight beneath the sod !
Only a voice whose music made
Shorter the weary ways we trod !
But with warmth and light and odorous
bloom,
The beautiful earth is glad and gay,
Though down in the gloom of the shadowy
tomb
Thy form, my beloved, lies hidden away !
THEN AND NOW.
WTIEX last these trembling- blossoms swung,
Bright pendants on the bending spray,
Like tiny bells by fairies rung
In tinkling murmurs all the day ;
We bent above them, thou and I,
Entranced the lovely things to view,
That shamed the ruby's burning dye,
And mocked the oriole's brilliant hue.
How fair thou wert that happy morn !
I turned to gaze upon thy face,
Where beauty, of the spiiit born,
Looked outward in serenest g'race ;
Then broke a lovely crimson spray,
With waxen leaves of darkest green,
And soon, a glowing wreath, it lay
Thy folds of soft brown hair between.
And then I kissed thee. Ah, my love !
Would that our past might live again !
For thou hast flown to realms above,
While I am standing her.1, as then.
But now from these same f!o\veiv< I twine
A simple wreath to deck thy grave,
Woe that a form so dear as thine
Love had no power to shield or save !
MES. HAEEIET BEECHEE STOWE.
THE OLD PSALM TUNE.
You asked, dear friend, the other day,
Why still my charmed ear
Rejoiceth in uncultured tone
That old psalm tune to hear ?
I've heard full oft, in foreign lands,
The grand orchestral strain,
Where music's ancient masters live,
Revealed on earth again, —
Where breathing, solemn instruments,
In swaying clouds of sound,
Bore up the yearning, tranced soul,
Like silver wings around ; —
I 've heard in old St. Peter's dome,
Where clouds of incense rise,
Most ravishing the choral swell
M Mint upwards to the skies.
And well I feel the magic power,
When skilled and cultured art
Its cunning webs of sweetness weaves
Around the captured heart.
But yet, dear friend, though rudely sung,
That old psalm tune hath still
A pulse of power beyond them all
My inmost soul to* thrill.
Those halting tones that sound to you,
Are not the tones I hear ;
But voices of the loved and lost
There meet my longing ear.
I hear my angel mother's voice, —
Those were the words she sung ;
I hear my brother's ringing tones,
As once on earth they rung.;
And friends that walk in white above
Come round me like a cloud,
And far above those earthly notes
Their singing sounds aloud.
There maybe disrord. as you say ;
Those voices poorly ring ;
But there's no discord iu the strain
Those upper spirits sing.
For they who sing are of the blest,
The calm and glorified,
Whose hours are one eternal rest
On heaven's sweet floating tide.
Their life is music and accord ;
Their souls and hearts keep time
In one sweet concert with the Lord, —
One concert vast, sublime.
And through the hymns they sang on earth
Sometimes a sweetness falls
On, those they loved and left below,
And softly homeward calls, —
Bells from our own dear fatherland,
Borne trembling o'er the sea, —
The narrow sea that they have crossed,
The shores where we shall be.
0 sing, .sing on, beloved souls !
Sing cares and griefs to rest ;
Sing, till entranced we arise
To join you 'mong the blest.
THE OTHER WORLD.
IT lies around us like a cloud,
A world we do not see ;
Yet the sweet closing of an eye
May bring "us there to be.
Its gentle breezes fan our cheek ;
Amid our wrorldly cares,
Its gentle voices whisper love,
And mingle with our prayers.
Sweet hearts around us throb and beat,
Sweet helping hands are stirred,
And palpitates the veil between
With breathings almost heard.
The silence, awful, sweet, and calm,
They have no power to break ;
For mortal words are not for them
To utter or partake.
So thin, so soft, so sweet, they glide,
So near to press they seem,
They lull us gently to our rest,
They melt into our dream.
And in the hush of rest they bring
'Tis easy now to see
How lovelv and how sweet a pass
The hour of death may be ; —
To close the eye, and close the ear,
Wrapped in a trance of bliss,
And, gently drawn in loving arms,
To swoon to that — from this, —
Scarce knowing if we wake or sleep,
Scarce asking where we are,
To feel all evil sink away,
All sorrow and all care.
Sweet souls around us ! watch us still ;
Press nearer to our side ;
Into our thoughts, into our prayers,
With gentle helpings glide.
MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
429
Let death between us be as naught,
A dried and vanished stream ;
Your joy be the reality,
Our suffering life the dream.
THE SECRET.
" Thou shalt. keep the
strife of tongues.''
in the secret of thy presence from the
winds are raging o'er the upper
wild contend with angry
WHEN
ocean,
And billows
roar,
'Tis said, far down beneath the wild com
motion,
That peaceful stillness reigneth evermore.
Far, far beneath, the noise of tempest dieth,
And silver waves chime ever peacefully ;
And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er he
flieth,
Disturbs the sabbath of that deeper sea.
So to the soul that knows thy love, 0 Purest,
There is a temple peaceful evermore !
And all the babble of life's angry voices
Die in hushed stillness at its sacred door.
Far, far away the noise of passion dieth,
And loving thoughts rise ever peacefully ;
And no rude storm, how fierce soe'er he
flieth,
' Disturbs that deeper rest, 0 Lord, in thee.
0 rest of rests ! 0 peace serene, eternal !
Thou ever livest and thou changest never;
And in the secret of thy presence dwelleth
Fullness of joy, forever and forever.
THINK NOT ALL IS OVER.
THINK not, when the wailing winds of au
tumn
Drive the shivering leaflets from the tree,
Think not all is over : spring returneth,
Buds and leaves and blossoms thou shalt
see.
Think not, when the earth lies cold and
sealed,
And the weary birds above her mourn, —
Think not all is over: God still liveth,
Songs and sunshine shall again return.
Think not, when thy heart is waste and
dreary,
When thy cherished hopes lie chill and
sere, —
Think not all is over : God still loveth,
He will wipe away thy every tear.
Weeping for a night alone endureth,
God at lust shall bring a morning hour ;
In the frozen buds of every winter
Sleep the blossoms of a future flower.
THE CROCUS.
BENEATH the sunny autumn sky,
With gold leaves dropping round,
We sought, my little friend and I,
The consecrated ground,
Where, calm, beneath the holy cross,
O'ershadowed by sweet skies,
Sleeps tranquilly that youthful form,
Those blue unclouded eyes.
Around the soft, green swelling mound
We scooped the earth away,
And buried deep the crocus bulbs
Against a coming day.
"These roots are dry, and brown, and
sere;
Why plant them here ? " he said,
" To leave them, all the winter long,
So desolate and dead."
" Dear child, within each sere dead form
There sleeps a living flower,
And angel-like it shall arise
In spring's returning hour."
Ah, deeper down — cold, dark, and chill —
We buried our heart's flower,
But angel-like shall he arise
In spring's immortal hour.
In blue and yellow from its grave
Springs up the crocus fair,
And God shall raise those bright blue eyes
Those sunny waves of hair.
Not for a fading summer's morn,
Not for a fleeting hour,
But for an endless age of bliss,
Shall rise our heart's dear flower.
" ONLY A YEAR.1'
ONE year ago, — a ringing voice,
A clear blue eye,
And clustering curls of sunny hair,
Too fair to die.
Only a year, — no voice, no smile,
No glance of eye,
No clustering curls of golden hair,
Fair but to die !
One year ago — what loves, what schemes
Far into life !
What joyous hopes, what high resolves,
What generous strife !
The silent picture on the wall,
The burial stone,
Of all that beauty, life, and joy
Remain alone !
One year, — one year, — one little year,
And so much gone !
And yet the even flow of life
Moves calmly on.
The grave grows green, the flowers bloom
fair,
Above that head ;
No sorrowing tint of leaf or spray
Says he is dead.
430
MRS. HARRIET BEECIIER STOWE.
No pause or hush of merry birds,
That sing1 above,
Tells us how coldly sleeps below
The form we love.
Where hast thou been this year, beloved?
What hast thou seen ?
What visions fair, what glorious life,
Where thou hast been '>.
The veil ! the veil ! so thin, so strong !
Twixt us and thee ;
The mystic veil ! when shall it fall,
That we may see ?
Not dead, not sleeping, not even gone,
But present still,
And waiting for the coming hour
Of God's sweet will.
Lord of the living and the dead,
Our Saviour dear !
We lay in silence at thy feet
This sad, sad vear!
MIDNIGHT.
" Tie hath made me to dwell in dnrkne
Ion* (lead."
as those that have been
ALL dark ! — no light, no ray !
Sun, moon, and stars, all gone !
Dimness of anguish !— utter void ! —
Crushed, and alone !
One waste of weary pain,
One dull, unmeaning ache,
A heart too weary, even to throb,
Too bruised too break.
No longer anxious thoughts,
No longer hopes and fears,
No strife, no effort, no desire,
No tears ?
Daylight and leaves and floAvers,
Summer and song of bird ! —
All vanished ! — dreams forever gone,
Unseen, unheard !
Love, beauty, youth, — all gone !
The high, heroic vow,
The buoyant hope, the fond desire, —
All ashes now !
The wo I'd s they speak to me
Far oil' and distant seem,
As voices we have known and loved
Speak in a dream.
They bid me 1o submit ;
I do — 1 cannot strive ;
1 do not question, — I endure,
Kudu re and live.
1 do not struggle more,
Nor pray, for prayer is vain ;
I but lie still the weary hour,
And bear my pain.
A guiding (iod, a Friend,
A Father's gracious cheer,
Once seemed my own ; but now even faith
Lies buried here.
This darkened, deathly life
Is all remains of me,
And but one conscious wish,
To cease to be 1
SECOND HOUR.
"They laid hold upon one Simon a Cyrenian, and on him they
laid the crots, that he ruiuht bear it alter Jesus. '
ALONG the dusty thoroughfare of life,
Upon his daily errands walking free,
Came a brave, honest man, untouched by
pain,
Unchilled by sight or thought of misery.
But lo ! a crowd : — he stops, — with curious
eye
A fainting form all pressed to earth he
sees ;
The hard, rough burden of the bitter cross
Hath bowed the drooping head and feeble
knees.
Ho ! lay the cross upon yon stranger there,
For he hath breadth of chest and strength
of limb.
Straight it is done ; and heavy laden thus,
With Jesus' cross, he turns and follows
him.
Unmurmuring, patient, cheerful, pitiful,
Prompt with the holy sufferer to endure,
Forsaking all to follow the dear Lord, —
Thus did he make his glorious calling-
sure.
O soul, whoe'er thou art, walking life's way,
As yet from touch of deadly sorrow free,
Learn from this story to forecast the day
When Jesus and his cross shall come to
thee.
0, in that fearful, that decisive hour,
Rebel not, shrink not, seek not thence to
nee,
But, humbly bending, take thy heavy load,
And bear it after Jesus patiently.
His cross is thine. If thou and he be one,
Some portion of his J>ain must still be
thine ;
Thus only mayst thou share his glorious
crown,
And reign with him in majesty divine
Master in sorrow! I accept my share
In the great anguish of life's mystery.
No more, alone, I sink beneath my load,
But bear mv cross, 0 Jesus, after thee.
A DAY IN THE F'AMFILI DORIA.
THOUGH the hills are cold and snowy,
And the wind drives chill to-day,
My heart goes back to a spring-time,
Far, far in the past away.
And I see a quaint old city,
Weary and worn and brown,
Where the spring and the birds are so early
And the sun in such light goes down.
MRS. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE.
431
I remember that old-time villa,
Where our afternoons went by,
Whevo the suns of March Hushed warmly,
And spring was in earth and sky.
Out of the mouldering city,
Mouldering, old, and gray,
We sped, with a lightsome heart-thrill,
For a sunny, gladsome day, —
For a revel of fresh spring verdure,
For a race 'mid springing flowers,
For a vision of plashing fountains,
Of birds and blossoming bowers.
There were violet banks in the shadows,
Violets white and blue ;
And a world of bright anemones,
That over the terrace grew, —
Blue and orange and purple,
Rosy and yellow and white,
Rising in rainbow bubbles,
Streaking the lawns with light.
And down from the old stone pine-trees,
Those far off islands of air,
The birds are flinging the tidings
Of a joyful revel up there.
And now for the grand old fountains,
Tossing their silvery spray,
Those fountains so quaint and so many,
That are leaping and singing all day.
Those fountains of strange weird sculpture,
With lichens and moss o'ergrown,
Are they marble greening in moss-wreaths ?
Or moss-wreaths whitening to stone ?
Down many a wild, dim pathway
We ramble from morning till noon ;
We linger, unheeding the hours,
Till evening comes all too soon.
And from out the ilex alleys,
Where lengthening shadows play,
We look on the dreamy Campagna,
All glowing with setting day, —
All melting in bands of purple,
In swathings and foldings of gold,
In ribands of azure and iilac,
Like a princely banner unrolled.
And the smoke of each distant cottage,
And the flash of each villa white,
Shines out with an opal glimmer,
Like gems in a casket of light.
And the dome of old St. Peter's
With a strange transl licence glows,
Like a mighty bubble of amethyst
Floating in waves of rose.
In a trance of dreamy vagueness
We, gazing and yearning, behold
That city beheld by the prophet,
Whose walls were transparent gold.
And, dropping all solemn and slowly,
To hallow the softening spell,
There falls on the dying twilight
The Ave Maria bell.
With a mournful motherly softness,
With a weird and weary care,
That strange and ancient city
Seems calling the nations to prayer.
And the words that of old the angel
To the mother of Jesus brought,
Ri ?e ] _k - a new ,-vangel,
To hollow the trance of our thought.
With the smoke of the evening incense
Our thoughts are ascending then
To Mary, the mother of Jesus,
To Jesus, the Master of men.
0 city of prophets and martyrs,
O shrines of the sainted dead,
When, when shall the living day-spring
Once more on your towers be spread ?
When He who is meek and lowly
Shall rule in those lordly halls,
And shall stand and feed as a shepherd
The flock which his mercy calls, —
0, then to those noble churches,
To picture, and statue, and gem,
To the pageant of solemn worship,
Shall the meaning come back again.
And this strange and ancient city,
In that reign of His truth and love,
Shall be what it seems in the twilight/
The type of that City above.
THE GARDENS OF THE VATICAN.
SWEET fountains, plashing with a dreamy
fall.
And mosses green, and tremulous veils of
fern,
And banks of blowing cyclamen, and stars,
Blue as the skies, of myrtle blossoming,
The twilight shade of ilex overhead
O'erbubbling with sweet song of nightingale,
With walks of strange, weird stillness, lead
ing on
'Mid sculptured fragments half to green
moss gone,
Or breaking forth amid the violet leaves
With some white gleam of an old world
g'one by.
Ah ! strange, sweet quiet ! wilderness of calm,
Gardens of dreamy rest, I long to lay
Beneath your shade the last long sigh, and
say,
Here is my home, my Lord, thy home and
mine ;
And I, having searched the world with many
a tear,
At last have found thee and will stray no
more.
But vainly here I seek the Gardener
That. Mary sa\v. These lovely halls beyond,
That airy, sky-like dome, that lofty fane,
Is as a palace whence the king is gone
And taken all the sweetness with himself.
Turn again, Jesus, and possess thine o\vn I
Come to thy temple once more as of old !
Drive forth the money-changers, let it be
A house of prayer for nations. Even so,
Amen ! Ameii !
MRS. MARY E. BRADLEY.
HEARTSEASE.
OF all the bonny buds that blow
In bright or cloudy weather,
Of all the flowers that come and go
The whole twelve moons together,
This little purple pansy brings
Thoughts of the sweetest, saddest things.
I had a little lover once,
Who used to give me posies :
His eyes were blue as hyacinths,
His lips were red as roses,
And everybody loved to praise
His pretty looks and winsome ways.
The girls that went to school with me
Made little jealous speeches,
Because he brought me royally
His biggest plums and peaches,
And always at the door would wait
To carry home my books and slate.
"They couldn't see" — with pout and fling-
" The mighty fascination
About that little snub-nosed thing
To win such admiration ;
As if there wern't a dozen girls
With nicer eyes and longer curls ! "
And this I knew as well as they,
And never could see clearly
Why more than Marion or May
I should be loved so dearly.
So once I asked him, why was this?
He only answered with a kiss.
Until I teased him — " Tell me why —
I want to know the reason ;"
When from the garden-bed close by
(The panties were in season)
He plucked and gave a flower to me,
Wiih sweet and Dimple gravity.
" The garden is in bloom," he said,
" With lilies pule and slender,
With roses and verbenas red,
And fuchsias' purple splendor;
But over and above the rest,
This little heartsease suits me best."
" Am I your little heartsease, then ? "
I asked with blushing pleasure :
He answnvd yes ! and yes again —
Heartsease, and dearest treasure;
That the round world and all the sea
Held nothing half so sweet as me 1
I listened with a proud delight
^Too rare for words to capture,
iSor ever dreamed what sudden blight
Would come to chill my rapture.
Could I foresee the tender bloom
Of pansies round a little tomb ?
Life holds some stern experience,
As most of us discover,
And I've had other losses since
I lost my little lover ;
But still this purple pansy brings
Thoughts of the saddest, sweetest things.
MIGXOXNETTE.
" Your qualities surpass your charms," — Language of Floicert,
I PASSED before her garden gate :
She stood among her roses,
And stooped a little from the state
In which her pride reposes,
To make her flowers a graceful plea
For luring and delaying me.
" When summer blossoms fade so soon,"
She said with winning sweetness,
" Who does not wear the badge of June
Lacks something of completeness.
My garden welcomes you to-day,
Come in and gather, while you may."
I entered in : she led me through,
A maze of leafy arches,
Where velvet-purple pansies grew
Beneath the sighing larches, —
A shadowy, still, and cool retreat
That gave excuse for lingering feet.
She paused, pulled down a trailing vine,
And twisted round her finger
Its starry sprays of jessamine,
As one who seeks to linger.
But I smiled lightly in her face,
And passed on to the open space
— Passed many a flower-bed fitly set
In trim and blooming order,
And plucked at last some mignonnette
That strayed along the border ;
A simple thing that had no bloom,
And but a faint and far perfume.
She wondered why I would not choose
That dreamy amaryllis, —
" And could I really, then, refuse
Those heavenly white lilies !
And leave ungathered on the slope
This passion-breathing heliotrope ? "
She did not know — what need to tell
So fair and fine a creature ? —
That there was one who loved me well
Of widely different nature;
MRS. MARY E. BRADLEY.
433
A little maid whose tender youth,
And innocence, and simple truth,
Had won my heart with qualities
That far surpassed her beauty,
And held me with unconscious ease
Enthralled of love and duty ;
Whose modest graces all were met
And symboled in my mignonnette.
I passed outside her garden-gate,
And left her proudly smiling :
Her roses bloomed too late, too late,
She saw, for my beguiling.
I wore instead — and wear it yet—
The single spray of mignonnette.
Its fragrance greets me unaware,
A vision clear recalling
Of shy, sweet eyes, and drooping hair
In girlish tresses falling,
And little hands so white and fine
That timidly creep into mine ;
^.s she — all ignorant of the arts
That wiser maids are plying —
Has crept into my heart of hearts
Past doubting or denying :
Therein, while suns shall rise and set,
To bloom unchanged, my mignonnette !
WINTER GREEN.
'' There are more tilings to be seen
In this sprig of winter-^reen
Trian its leaves, and (jerries red,
And tiir dew on which thry led.
1 will Ml you what s.'ined.y,
Wlien i lie children are at ],l.iy,
Out 01 hearing, mil "1 sight:
Uut n, . wrdof it lo-niuhi,
For 'tis Christmas Kve, and we
Must go dress the Christmas Tree."— ANON.
THE frost has melted from the pane,
For rime is not in reason
When flowers begin to bloom again,
And the clear shining after rain
Foretells an April season.
I know how white the snow-drifts lie
Against the hawthorn hedges ;
And do ii')t venture to deny
Tuat icicles hang high a.nd dry
Along the window-ledges.
But some have found the flower of life
A delicate May-comer ;
Some find the winter's storm and strife
Witn more of blooming sweetness rife
Than any hour of summer.
And let me tell you why to-day
The frost leaves no impression ;
And why when all the world is gray
I hold, so confidently gay,
The sunshine in possession.
An hour ago this very room,
That now you find so cheery,
Was dull and darksome as a tomb
Whereon the flowers have ceased to bloom,
And I was just as dreary.
But while, with secret sense of shame,
Yet secret sense of yearning,
I breathed a rarely-uttered name,—
Behold ! a letter to me came
With news of his returning !
Then all the wintry world grew bright
With summer warmth and shining,
And every cloud that day or night
Had darkened over my delight,
Revealed a silver lining. .
For long ago, 0 long ago,
No need now to remember,
If April violets were in blow,
Or if the fields were wrapt in snow
Of dreary cold December, —
My love was proud, my love and I
Were proud, and tender-hearted ;
We passed each other coldly by,
Nor ever told the reason why
So foolishly we parted.
We went our weary ways alone,
He sailed the wide seas over ;
I kept my secret for my own,
And saw the pinky blossoms grown
Ten times upon the clover.
Ten times I heard the honey-bees
Among them sweetly humming ;
But never summer bee nor breeze
Brought me such welcome words as these, —
" Your love is coming, coming !"
Upon the bitter biting blast
Of January flying,
The happy message came at last ;
And so, you see, my winter's past,
For all the snow's denying.
You need not smile because the snow
Upon my hair is sprinkled ;
Hearts may keep spring-time still, although
The brow above, like mine, you know,
Is just a little wrinkled.
I would not change with you, my sweet,
For all your April beauty ;
Nor give, for all the hearts that meet
To oiler at your pretty feet
Their undivided duty,
The one that unforgetting went
For ten long years together, —
The one whose crowning love has lent
" The winter of my discontent" •
Its flush of summer weather.
BESIDE THE SEA.
TO E. D. B. 3.
THE sea rolls up against the beach,
The old house fronts the sea ;
Only the high road's level reach
Betwixt its waves and me.
Across the window-ledge I lean
And watch the waters play,
As you have watched their shade and sheen
On many an April day,
434
MRS. MARY E. BRADLEY.
lake this, which brightens to its close
Till sky and sea below
With sunset tints of gold and rose
Lie Hushed in equal glow ;
And far across the shining bay
A rainbow faintly fades away.
How like a dream it seems to me,
A tender dream come true,
To watch, in silent sympathy,
This sunlit sea with you !
I turn to look upon your face ;
It is not one, indeed —
With all the frankness of your race — •
That he who runs may read :
But like a floAver that drops apart
When summer sunbeams shine,
The closest leaflets of your heart
Have opened unto mine,
With all your yearning thoughts that fly
Beyond the sea, beyond the sky.
I would that like the sunbeams, dear,
I held the happy power
To shed a radiant atmosphere
About the drooling flower —
That as the cloud of April flies
Before their bright control,
So might the shadow from your eyes,
Its substance from your soul !
Vain wishes — unto us who know
How black such shadows fall — •
The face we love best hid below
A coffin-lid and pall-
Love has not any balm to cure
These griefs that silently endure.
And I who love you, friend of years,
Can give you only this —
The mute companionship of tears,
The language of a kiss ;
Or quiet clasping of the hand
When memories overflow,
And shines upon the sea and land
The light of long ago.
Not much for giving, it is true,
To one in merrier mood,
But something, after all, to you
So 1<> be understood ;
And in this old house by the sea,
I comprehend you utterly.
Its ancient walls are eloquent
Of days that are no more ;
Fail- days, sen-lie with sweet content,
Dark days, that darkly bore
Tin- burden of a lierce despair,
A sharp, unequal strife—
Wherein who struggles he shall wear
The bitter scars for life.
You wear them — ah ! the cruel need,
God knows it ! Let it be.
Some day the riddle we shall read
And all the reason see.
The shadows darken on the bay ;
The color fades ; you turn away.
A RHYME OF THE EAIN.
OXCE I sang in April weather
(Oh, I sang it all in vain !)
'Tome and welcome, April shower 1
Tap your message on the pane.
April rain !
I can guess the merry meaning
Of your musical refrain.
" For he loves me, loves me truly !
Summer shower and winter snow
Bring the happy message to me,
And the wildest winds that blow.
Oh, I know
What the birds mean by their singing,
What the brook says, laughing low!
" He is coming! April shower,
With the bonny buds of May,
Bid the lilacs and the lilies
Don their loveliest array.
Dance away !
Let your kisses speed their blooming
For my merry marriage-day ! "
So I sang in April weather,
And my voice wras wild with glee
As the streamlet's, rippling downward
To its marriage with the sea.
But, ah me !
Never while the tides flow onward
Shall my merry marriage be.
For he did not love me truly :
'Tis the way of honey bees,
Having sucked the flower's sweetness
Just to wander as they plea'se :
Will the breeze
Hold the flower's incompleteness
Limitation unto these ?
Comes again the April weather,
And the sudden cloud hangs low,
And the rain-drops dance together
With a measured fall and flow.
But, I know,
They will bring the message never
That they brought me long ago.
IX THE NIGHT.
THE night wind rustles in the trees:
In my dim chamber, ill at ease,
I lie with feverish pain opprest,
And toss the covers from my breast,
And turn my face to meet the breeze.
Outside, upon the lamp-lit street
The ringing tramp of endless feet,
And rush of wheels, and jangling bells
Blend With a voice that sinks and swells
In a rude ballad, shrilly sweet.
I listen till the wandering song
Dies in the undistinguished throng
Of jarring noises. Sleep has fled,
And sad-eyed Thought has come instead
To drag the weary hours along.
MRS. MARY E. BRADLEY.
435
I yield myself to her control,
And ponder, sick and sad of soul,
How many sufferers there be
That lie in sleepless pain, like me,
Nor any power can make them whole.
No right have I, the truth being shown,
Or such as I, to make a moan.
Sin brings perforce its punishment ;
Who breaks a law must be content
To make the penalty his own.
And I have sinned enough, my God,
To hold me still beneath Thy rod,
And own the chastening is meet ;
Knowing how wilfully my feet
By and forbidden paths have trod.
Bat under this wide, starlit sky
How many sinless creatures lie
Tortured and bound with nameless pain,
And stretch imploring hands in vain,
Nor ever know the reason why !
The little children, innocent
Alike of good or ill intent,
Whose utter helplessness should be
As utter an immunity —
What is their sin for punishment ?
Why should their span of life, so brief,
Be ignorantly full of grief ?
And the pathetic look that lies
Mutely appealing in their eyes
Be unavailing for relief ?
It wrings my heart with sudden woe
To know — as I too surely know —
How many feverish hands will burn,
What little heads shall toss and turn
This night, in anguish, to and fro.
And how the mother-hearts must ache
With equal anguish for their sake,
The while with passionate tears they plead
Before a Power that takes no heed
To hands that burn or hearts that break !
My soul by reason of these things
Is tortured l>y vain questionings.
Is God a God of Love in truth ;
And can He coldly, with no ruth,
Observe such needless sufferings?
I am His creature, verily,
Mad:- in His image. Can it be
That the men; creature of His breath
Who holds in balance life and death
Is made more merciful than He ?
/would account it pure delight
To stretch above the world this night
Vast wings of healing, and to shed
Upon each aching heart and head
A blessed balm, if so I might.
^ s Christ the sick and sore went by,
And made them whole, so too would I.
No little child should wake to weep ;
But, wrapt around with tender sleep,
The mother and the babe should lie.
How the mere fancy that my will
Could such a boundless good fulfil
Deadens the sense* of present pain,
Sends the quick blood through every vein,
And makes my languid pulses thrill !
Yet God on His eternal throne
Hears all unmoved this endless moan,
That at the echo of His word
To sweet rejoicing could be stirred
In a far-reaching monotone.
Thou art the potter, we the clay,
My God ! and yet both night and day
I wonder why Thy ways should be
So past the finding out ; for me,
I wonder when I ought to pray.
For hearts that simply pray and trust,
They know Thee good, and great, and just,
And with a love that casts out fear
They wait to read Thy meaning clear —
Even till dust returns to dust.
Let mine be like them in Thy sight,
O God of mercy, God of might !
That I may trust Thee for Thy grace,
And find Thee in the darkest place
By an unerring inward light.
Dispel the haunting doubt and dread —
Twin spectres — that beset my bed ;
Nor mine alone. Thou knowest, Lord,
They keep their evil watch and ward
This night by many a fevered head.
Through the long hours, with pain possessed,
We lie and think, we cannot rest,
And on our apprehension grows
The sum of individual woes —
A nightmare weight upon the breast.
But Thou canst lift the weary weight,
And Love and Faith can penetrate
With sweetest sense of certainty
The desolating doubts of Thee
That Unbelief and Fear create.
Therefore, let Faith and Love endure,
Our Father! till our hearts are sure
The bitterest. blossom that can blow
Its root of sweetness hath below,
And every ill shall find its cure.
SONG.
COOL wind, sweet wind, blowing oft the sea,
Have you brought from Adelaide the kiss
she sent to me ?
Adelaide '» u little maid, fair as summer
skies,
All the dew and all the blue of April in her
eyes.
Red her lips like strawberries, or cherries
cleft in two,
But never fruit from any root such heavenly
sweetness drew ;
I who stole a kiss from them, and not so
long ago —
Cool wind, sweet wind, ought n't I to know ?
436
MRS. MARY E. BRADLEY.
Cool wind, sweet wind, flutter faraway !
1 would rather see the gale that sweeps
across the bay ;
Rather greet snow and sleet, and sullen win
ter rain,
Than all the bloom and perfume that follow
in your train.
For when the winds of winter blow over
land and sea,
Adelaide, the little maid, she will marry me ;
Merrily the marriage bells will sound across
the bay —
Cool wind, sweet wind, flutter far away !
THE FOUK-LEAYED CLOVER.
IF it be true, or no,
That luck's in a four-leaved clover —
As the old stories go —
Now I mean to discover.
Ankle-deep in the dew
(With hopes too dear to be spoken),
I searched the grass-plot through
Till I found the fairy token.
Shyly hiding from sight
The nodding grasses under,
I brought it forth to the light —
Here is my four-leaved wonder !
A small affair, if you scan
Its outward presence merely,
To wake in the heart of a man
The hope he holds most dearly.
But love has its mystic lore —
You may call it superstition !
And Hope is the open door
Sometimes to a sweet fruition.
One thing this night shall show
Or I am no true lover, —
If it be faLse or no,
That luck's in a four-leaved clover !
IRREVOCABLE.
NOT all I could have wished her : you are
right,
But blessings brighten as they take their
flight.
If I could see her yonder, in the chair
She sat in yesterday ; could touch her hair ;
Or clasp her living hand in mine once
more, —
I should be happier than I ever was before.
She was not so responsive to my touch,
She aid not love me — as you say — so much,
That I should grieve with grief befitting
him
Whose cup of joy was emptied from the
brim.
But losing all, it does not help my need
To know the actual loss is very small In
deed.
We never should have married : that
ap.
pears
A clear deduction from the weary years
Of difference between us. She was young
And passionate ; not apt to rule her tongue :
And I, with riper power of self-control,
For ever failed to strike the key-note of her
soul.
And yet I loved her : at the last she knew,
Past doubting, that my love was fond and
true.
Could my desire have stayed her failing
breath,
And drawn her from the cruel clasp of
Death,
She might have learned — I think she would
have learned —
To give me all for which my hungry spirit
yearned.
That parting anguish to us both revealed,
Too late, alas ! the chance that Life con
cealed.
As if these embers, smoldering at my feet,
Should glow again with red and quivering
heat,
And leap alive in airy jets of flame,
Because a sudden breath across their dulness
It might have failed me in the trial ? Yes, —
But I would risk the trial none the less.
God knows, there is no rough and bitter
track
I would not tread with joy, to bring her
back.
For blessings brighten as they take their
flight,
And life is very desolate to me to-n'ght.
ASHES OF ROSES.
SOMEBODY promised — " Or ever June closes
I will be with you to gather the roses :
Failing my share of the blossomy treasure
May lavished on you in bountiful measure,
Missing the dew and delight of the spring,
June, I affirm, shall atone for the thing.
When the sweet summer is blushing in
roses,
Watch for me, welcome me — ere your June
closes."
Somebody else, by the casement leaf-shaded,
Watched till her roses had blossomed and
faded :
Counted the beautiful days a^ they vanished ;
Hoped until hope from her bosom was ban
ished.
When the fair queen of the summer was
dead,
Sighing, she turned from the window, r.nd
said —
" June "will return for the rose and tl.e
clover,
But oh ! for the June of my heart that is
over 1 "
KATE PUTNAM OSGOOP.
DRIVING HOME THE COWS.
OUT of the clover and blue-eyed grass
He turned tliem into the river lane ;
One after another he let them pass,
Then fastened the meadow bars again.
Under the willows, and over the hill,
He patiently followed their sober pace ;
The merry wliistlfi for once was still,
And something shadowed the sunny face.
Only a boy ! and his father had said
He never could let his youngest go :
Two already were lying dead
Under the feet of the trampling foe.
But after the evening work was done,
And the frogs were loud in the meadow-
swamp,
Over his shoulder he slung his gun,
And stealthily followed the foot-path
damp.
Across the clover, and through the wheat,
With resolute heart and purpose grim,
Though cold was the dew on his hurrying
feet,
And the blind bat's flitting startled him.
Thrice since then had the lanes been white,
And the orchards sweet with apple-bloom ;
And now, when the cows came back at
night,
The feeble father drove them home.
For news had come to the lonely farm
That three were lying where two had lain ;
And the old man's tremulous, palsied arm
Could never lean on a son's again.
The summer day grew cool and late :
He went for the cows when the work was
done ;
But down the lane, as he opened the gate,
He saw them coining, one by one :
Brindle, Ebony, Speckle, and Bess,
Shaking their horns in the evening wind ;
Cropping the butter-cups out of the grass —
But who was it following close behind ?
Loosely swung in the idle air
The empty sleeve of army blue ;
And worn and pale, from the crisping hair,
Looked out a face that the father knew.
For Southern prisons will sometimes yawn,
And yield their dead unto life again ;
And the day that comes with a cloudy dawn
In golden glory at last may wane.
The great tears sprang to their meeting
eyes ;
For the heart must speak when the lips
are dumb :
And under the silent evening skies
Together they followed the cattle home.
UNDER THE MAPLE.
THE start it gave me just now, to see —
As I stood in the door-way looking out —
Rob Greene at play by the maple-tree,
Throwing the scarlet leaves about !
It carried me back a long, long way ;
Ten years ago — how the time runs by ! — •
There was nobody left at home that day
But little Jimmy and father and I :
My husband's father, an old, old man,
Close on to eighty, but still so smart :
It was only of late that he began
To stay in the house and doze apart.
But the fancy took him that afternoon
To go to the meadow to watch the men ;
And as fast as I arg'ued, just so soon
He went right over it all again ;
Till, seeing how set he seemed to be,
I thought, with the air so warm and still,
It could not hurt him to go with me,
And sit for a little under the hill.
So, lending my arm to his feeble tread,
Together slowly we crossed the road,
While Jim and his cart ran on ahead
With a heap of pillows for wagon load.
We made him a soft seat, cushioned about,
Of an old chair out of the barn close by ;
Then Jim went off with a caper and shout,
While we sat silent, father and I.
For me, I was watching the men at work,
And looking at Jack, my oldest son —
So like his father ! — he never Avould shirk,
But kept straight on till the stint was
done.
Seventeen was Jack that last July :
A great stout fellow, so tall and strong!
And I spoke to the old man by-and by,
To see how fast he was getting along.
But father had turned away his head,
A -folio wing Jimmy's busy game
With the maple leaves, whose,bloody red
Flared up in the sun like so much flaine.
433
KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD.
His lips, as lie looked, began to move,
And I heard him mutter a word or two :
" Yes, Joe ! A fire in the Weston grove ?
Just wait — one minute — I'll go with you ! "
"Why, father," I cried, "what do you
mean ? "
For 1 knew he talked of his brother Joe,
The twin that was drowned at scarce fifteen,
Sixty summers and more ago.
" The sun has dazzled you : don't you see
That isn't a fire a-blazing there ?
It's only Jim, by the maple-tree,
Tossing the red leaves into the air."
But still he nodded, and looked, and smiled,
Whispering something I could not hear;
Till, fairly frightened, I called the child,
Who left his play and came frolicking
near.
The old man started out of his seat :
" Yes, Joe, yes ; I'm coming/' said he.
A moment he kept his tottering feet,
And then his weight grew heavy on me.
" Father ! " I screamed ; but he did not mind,
Though they all came running about us
then :
The poor old body was left behind,
And the twins were young together again.
And I wonder sometimes, when I wake at
night,
"Was it his eyes or my own were dim?
Did something stand, beyond my sight,
Among the leaves, and beckon to him ?
Well! there comes Jim up the interval
road :
Ten summers ago ? yes, all of ten :
Th;,t's Baby Jack on the pumpkin load,
And Jim is as old as Jack was then.
THE SOUL'S QUEST.
A RAD soul knocked, as the night came down,
At the gate where Time as Warder stands ;
Then- was dust in the folds of her pilgrim
gown,
And blood on the staff in her wounded
hands.
"Whence nrt thou come, witli a cheek as pale
As the lilies drooping above thy brow?
Thine eyes arc heavy, thy footsteps fail;
Thou sorrowful soul, what seekest thou?
Oh, T am worn with the rocky road
My faltering feet were forced to climb I
1 have come up from :l f;) • abode
To beg for a boon, O pitiful Time !
And how hast thou reached these hidden
towers
JNo mortal vision before hath found?
I have followed the lingering scent of the
flowers
Borne out of my life's fair garden-ground :
Young buds of hope, and the lavish bloom
Of joys cut down in their splendid prime :
I am faint for lack of their rich perfume ;
Give back my roses, O cruel Time !
I have taken thy flowers and planted them
Where the breath of an endless summer
blows ;
But left I not by their broken stem
A living lily for every rose ?
Behold, they are wreathed around thy
brow ;
Thy tresses scatter their dewy balm ;
More fair than the flowers of earth, I trow,
Are Memory's lilies, pure and calm.
Oh, fresh and sweet though my lilies be,
I thirst for those cups of spice again !
Thou pleading soul, I will render thee
The boon thou hast sotight through toil
and pain.
Unloose my lilies from out thy hair,
And bind in their place thy roses red.
Nay, nay. but suffer me still to wear
This fragrant bloom of the days that are
dead.
Shall I rob for thy earth my garden wall
Of the lily leaf and the rich rose-vine ?
Thou shalt enter at last and gather all,
But choose thou to-day 'twixt thine and
mine.
Those roses the fullness of life had lent
The odor and flush of its fervid years ;
But they breathed not the rare and subtle
scent
Of the pure pale lilies bom of tears.
Slowly at length to the weary track,
From the flowers she had followed so far
astray,
Sweet Memory's chaplet bearing back,
The sad soul turned on her downward
way.
JIMMY.
JIMMY and I are fellows for play !
Never tired of it, rain or shine.
Jimmy was six the last birthday,
While I was only— sixty-nine !
So little Master Commonsense
Gives himself superior airs,
Guiding my inexperience
By the wisdom under his own white hairs
Sometimes it happens the hoary sage —
Over-anxious for Number One —
Tunis to account my tender age,
And 1 am most atrociously "done."
No matter how it may chance to be,
Jimmy's argument never fails :
The copper is always wrong for me,
And Jimmy is winner, heads or tails.
KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD,
439
Wt.ll, 1 have lived to be boy and man,
Dad and grandad, and yet, I vow,
Never was I in my threescore and ten
Half so sharp as Jimmy is now !
And sadly the question bothers me,
As I stop in my play to look at him —
What will the Twentieth Century be,
If the Nineteenth's youngsters are all like
Jim ?
BY THE APPLE-TREE.
IT was not anger that changed him of late ;
It was not diffidence made him shy ;
Yon branch that has blossomed above the
gate
Could guess the riddle — and so can I.
What does it mean when the bold eyes fall,
And the ready tongue at its merriest trips ?
What potent influence holds in thrall
The eager heart and the burning lips ?
Ah me ! to falter before a girl
Whose shy lids never would let you know
(Save for the lashes' wilful curl)
The pansy-purple asleep below.
Nothing to frighten a man away —
Only a cheek like a strawberry-bed ;
Only a ringlet's gold astray,
And a mouth like a baby's, dewy-red.
Ah, baby-mouth, with your dimpled bloom !
If but yon blossomy apple-bough
Could whisper a secret learned in the gloom,
That deepens its blushes even now.
No need, for the secret at last is known :
Yet so, I fancy, it might not be
Had he not met her, by chance, alone,
There in the lane, by the apple-tree.
MARGUERITE.
WHAT aileth pretty Marguerite ?
Such April moods about her meet !
She sighs, and yet she is not sad ;
She smiles, with naught to make her glad.
A thousand flitting fancies chase
The sun and shadow on her face :
The wind is not more light than she,
Nor deeper the unsounded sea.
What aileth pretty Marguerite ?
Doth none discern her secret sweet ?
Yet earth and air have many a sign
The heart of maiden to divine.
In budding leaf and building nest
Lie kindred mysteries half confest ;
And whoso hath the gift of sight
May Nature's riddle read aright.
Not all at once the lily's heart
Is kissed by wooing waves apart :
Not in a day the lavish May
Flings all her choicest flowers away.
Fair child ! shall potent Love alone
Forget to send his heralds on?
Ah, happy lips, that dare repeat
What aileth pretty Marguerite !
MOTHER MICHAUD.
IT was early morn when Mother Michaud
Passed by the guard at the city gate,
Drowsily measuring, to and fro,
The narrow length of the iron grate.
Still, far and faint in the twilight swoon,
Where dark and dawning at straggle meet,
Like her own pale shadow, the waning moon
Hung lonely over the lonely street.
By winding stairway and gable quaint —
Carved over again in shade below —
By arch and turret and pillared saint,
With lightsome step walked Mother Mi
chaud.
Pleasant it was in the smoky town
The rosy old country face' to see !
The high white cap and the peasant gown
Brought up a vision of Normandie —
Normandie, with its fair green swells,
The sweep of its orchards' flowery flood,
Ways that wind into woody dells,
Corn fields red with the poppy's blood.
There, in the corner, the wheel stood still
That used to whir like the bees on the
thatch ;
The cherries might tap on the window-sill,
And the vine, unloosened, lift the latch ;
But Mother Michaud had left behind
The sun and scent of her native plain,
Far over the darkling hills to find
The face of her youngest son again.
Nine long years had come and gone,
Nine long years, since the April day
When into the mists of the early dawn
He melted, a kindred mist, away.
And year after year the bright boy-face,
That never came back from that cloud-
land dim,
Beckoned her out of the empty space,
Till it drew her at last to follow him.
Lonely and dark in the dawning spread
The city's tangle of court and street ;
But the stones that answered her hurrying
tread
Had echoed before to his passing feet !
Lonely and dark ? — But a sound, a glare,
Strike on the sense like a sudden blow !
Press closer up to the shadowy stair,
Out of the tumult, Mother Michaud !
Clatters the street to the soldiers' tram}),
File on h'le, with a stately sheen,
Under the flare of the fitful lain])
Held high in the cart that rolls between.
The heads carved over the doorway there
Grin into view fora moment plain,
Mocking the mute, bewildered stare
Of the mother who finds her son again.
Finds him, to lose him at last — like this !
Chained like a wolf, with those wolfish
eyes !
440
KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD.
Dead, with never a mother's kiss,
Ere yon low moon drops out of the skies !
Forward she sprang, in the torch-light blaze
Full overhead as the cart went by —
All her soul in that straining ga/e,
All her strength in that maddened cry.
He turned, as it smote through his dulling
ear* :
Their wild eyes met — and the cart drove on.
So Mother Michaud, after nine long years,
Looked into the face of her youngest son.
IN THE SEED.
You have chosen coldly to cast away
The love they tell you is faithless found.
Pity or trust it is vain to pray —
Your heart they have hardened, your
senses bound.
You have broken the wreaths that clasped
you round,
The strength of the vine and the opening
flower :
Love, torn and trampled on stony ground,
Is left to die in its blossom hour.
Well, go your ways ; but, wherever they
lead,
They cannot leave me wholly behind.
From the flower, as it falls, there falls a
seed
Whose roots round the root of life shall
wind.
So sure as the soul in the flesh is shrined,
So sure as the fire in the cloud is set,
Be \ou ever so cold or ever so blind,
You shall find and fathom and feel me yet.
As the germ of a tree in the close dark earth
Struggles for life in its breathless tomb,
Quickening painfully into birth,
Writhing its way up to light and room ;
As it spreads its growth till the great
boughs loom
A shade and a greenness wide and high,
And the birds sing under the "myriad
bloom,
And the top looks into the infinite sky ;
So si mil it he with the love to-day
Flung under your feet as a worthless
thing.
The hour and the spot I cannot sav
When- the seed, fate-sown, at last shall
spring:
Beyond, it may be, the narrow ring
Of our little world in swarming space,
After weary length of journeying,
It shall drop from the wind to its destined
place.
But somewhere, I know, it shall reach its
1 1 eight !
Sometimes it shall conquer this cruel
wrong t
The sun by day, and the moon by night,
Shower and season, shall bear' it along.
You will sleep and wake while it waxes
strong
And green beside the appointed ways,
Till, full of blossom and dew and song,
You shall find it there after many days.
Perchance it shall be amid long despair
Of toiling over the desert sand ;
When your eyes are burned by the level
glare,
And the staff is fire to your bleeding
hand.
Then the waving of boughs in a silent
land,
And a wonder of green afar shall spread,
And your feet as under a tent shall stand,
With shadow and sweetness about your
head.
And my soul, like the unseen scent of the
flower,
Shall circle the heights and the depths of
the tree :
Nothing of all in that consummate hour
That shall not come as a part of me !
This world or that may my triumph see —
But love and life can never be twain,
And time as a breath of the wind shall be,
When we meet and grow together again !
UNDER THE MOON.
LIKE a lily-flower uplifted
Full blown on the blue tide-sway,
Into the heaven blossoms
The perfect moon of May.
White under her own white glory
She sees, on the green young ground,
The fallen bloom of the 'cherry
Drift over a double mound.
There, where the cottage chimneys
Peer dim through a mist of trees,
They sat by the hearth at evening,
With the child about their knees.
Three empty seats by the fireside,
Two graves 'neath the orchard bough
The dead are at rest together :
But where is the living now !
Pale in the smoky circle
That fain would shadow her noon,
Over the lights of the city
Trembles the large May moon.
But blind to that searching splendor,
Deaf to the riotous street,
He lies in a drunken slumber —
The child that played at their feet.
Were it not well, in the cradle,
Long since the babe had died?
Had the little headstone risen
Those two green mounds beside ?
Nay, this is not the ending,
O child of their love and prayer !
(Jod's moon is one in the heavens,
His mercy everywhere.
KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD.
441
A CHILDISH FANCY.
OH mother ! see how pale and wet
The flowers on father's grave are lying !
It must be watching you has set
The little daisy-buds to crying !
Poor child ! and do you think the earth
Sorrows because our hearts are aching?
Look, then, with what a careless mirth
That sunlight on his bed is breaking !
Yes, but you called the great blue air
God's home, to all His angels given ;
And so perhaps the sunbeam there
Is father smiling up in heaven !
SIXTEEN AND SIXTY.
SING with me, laugh with me, sister Spring !
Oh ! we are happy, we two, to-day !
Are we two, or the self -same thing ?
Thou and I, 0 beautiful May ?
I thrill as a leaf to the circling air :
The blood in my veins is like sap in the
vine :
The wild bees follow my floating hair,
Made sweet with buds for this lover of
Frame me in lijrht for his eyes anew !
Does the earth shrink under your gaze,
O sky ?
I am fair as a flower ; I am fresh as the dew :
We are young together, the year and I.
Heavens ! to think there can come a time
When the sense is dull and the pulse is
slow !
To stand, in the spring-tide's golden prime,
The single blot on the whole great glow !
Poor madame yonder, with all her gold,
She is pale and wrinkled, and old and
alone ;
She is less alive than the mossy mould
That clings to the top of that buried stone.
I never can be like that, I know,
We have years on years of our youth's
bright flower ;
And if ever my love must let him go,
I shall drop and die in the self-same hour.
Hark ! he is coming ! The faint winds sigh
Before his feet to bring him soon !
While over us both, in the warm blue sky,
The sun goes quivering up to noon.
One may venture to trust the sun to-day :
There is warmth at last in that seeming
blaze.
At last ! — already the midst of May !
So backward the springs are nowadays !
What do I see by the terrace there,
That dazzles so white on the slope of
green ?
It is little Laura, with flowers in her hair ?
Ah yes : to-day she is just sixteen.
Poor silly baby ! I understand
What keeps you loitering there alone :
Each bough in your path an outstretched
hand,
And every whisper a lover's tone.
You fancy, perhaps, in your giddy youth,
I can never have dreamed such dreams as
you ?
Eh, child ? I have had my May, forsooth !
Fairer than yours while it lasted, too.
To think that the time has been when even
I, too, was a fool in Paradise !
When the spring was the year, and the earth
a heaven,
And heaven itself was in two blue eyes !
Only sixteen ! Such a weary round
Before she can find what the whole is
worth !
Her Garden of Eden common ground,
And her idol himself but a lump of earth.
Ah, well ! like the rest she must live and
learn.
The flower of youth must wither and fall ;
The fire of love to its ashes burn ;
For me — thank Heaven ! I have done with
it all.
AWAKENED.
MY heart was like a hidden lyre
In silence that so long hath lain —
Not e'en the cold, neglected wire
llemembereth its own sweet strain :
Till thou, a breeze from summer shore,
Breathed tenderly across the string,
That, waking into life once more,
Began the broken song to sing.
My soul was like a diamond spark
Imprisoned in the rocky mine,
Unconscious, in that eyeless dark,
What hidden fires within it shine :
Till thou, a gleam of noonday light,
Upon the buried jewel came,
That, breaking from its long, dull night,
Leaped up, a many-tinted flame.
My life was like a pallid flower
Within the shadow sprung, alone,
Forgotten of the sun and shower,
And withering ere it has blown :
Till thou, a drop of morning clew,
Stole softly downward through the gloom,
And straight the bud asunder flew
To fill the air with balm and bloom.
Then take, and fashion to thy will,
This heart and soul and life of mine !
Shall not thine own free gifts fulfill
Their utmost hope' in seeking thine ?
I claim no harvest from a field
My hands have tended not : the tone,
The fragrance, and the light revealed
By thee, belong to thee alone !
443
KATE P-UTNAM OSGOOD.
SAWDUST.
LAST night I happened, quite by chance
Intruding lute upon the scene,
To see ;i most delightful dance
My little sister's dolls between.
It was a party so select,
Conducted in the style approved,
I really hardly could detect
'Twas not the circle where /moved !
A manikin I marked, whom all
Seemed, as one doll, to hang about
(Except a cynic by the wall,
Whose grapes were sour enough, no doubt).
And as I saw the eager smile
Of such a very pretty ninny —
Whose waist and hair and general style
Were not unlike my cousin Winny —
And watched that other savage face,
A startling sort of likeness came
Between the poor doll-fellow's case
And — some one's whom I need not name.
And still the question puzzles me,
Remembering the look lie wore —
Am 1 a doll ? or can it be
That I have seen it all before ?
Though, save myself, no creature there
Had any claim upon a soul,
That court about the millionaire
Looked strangely natural, on the whole.
Who would have thought the same good
sense
Common to dolls' and human brains,
Or such a trifling difference
'T \vixt blood and sawdust in the veins !
IN CLOVEK.
THE path drops down the hill -side, and
creeps through the clover a while,
To tangle itself in thistles, at last, the other
side of the stile.
Bill's meadow and mine together there, per
haps for the contrast's sake,
For Bill's is as rich a clover-field as ever
bothered a rake :
While mine! — well, I bought it, weeds and
all, this summer, of Parson West :
lie's great in the pulpit Sundays — but his
farming's none of the best !
Xot that 1 mean to grumble, for I think my
self lucky enough
To get a piece of my own at last ; what odds
if it's ever so rough ?
But here, at my nooning, I catch a whiff of
the clover now and then,
Mixed with a laugh, and look over the wall,
to see her there again,
Talking with Bill. It's the queerest thing —
if girls were not always so ! —
What brings her so often, lately ? It isn't
for him, I know.
And Bill, he takes it so easy ! — while she,
with a pretty art,
Mixes her smiles and blushes in a wuy I've
learned by heart,
Looks up and down together, enough to be
wilder a man,
He pulls at that hard old cider, with barely
a glance from the can !
Well, well, I grudge the time to laugh till
after my work is done ;
But only to see a fellow in clover — more
ways than one —
Turn coolly round to feeding, like an ox let
out from a stall,
Careless of summer sight or sound, and
something sweeter than all !
You lump of bread and butter, Bill ! if 1
were there in your stead !
There's more than hay in your clover-field,
and a meaning in lips so red !
If only I stood there, close to her, with the
clover up to my knees,
Full of the dew and the sunlight, and the
whirl and hum of the bees,
I'd envy neither your cider, nor the blossom-
wine they drink :
There's a sweeter honey than ever yet was
ripened for either, I think.
Well, it's easier wishing than working,. but
there isn't much of a doubt
A. man must raise his clover himself, or
manage to do without,
Bill's was his father's before him, it's true,
but Bill's no rule for me ;
I reckon he's no more like to win what both
of us want, you see.
So, Dobbin, nooning is over. What ! is she
going awav '!
Kat on, old horse, for a little ; she's sure to
have something to say.
It's always the same: a word or a look just
as she passes the gate,
With a Miiile that dazzles my wits away till
after it's all too late.
No matter : some day, when my clover is
growing tall and red.
I'm bound to ask a question shall ,nake her
falter instead.
It's only waiting and working a little longer
still :
Get up to your work, old fellow ! she doesn't
c< t re for Bill !
MES. S. M. B. PI ATT.
THE FANCY BALL.
As Morning you'd have me rise
On that shining world of art ;
You. forget : I have too much dark in my
.eyes —
•And too much dark in my heart.
" Then go as the Night — in June :
Pass, dreamily, by the crowd,
With jewels to mock the stars and the
moon,
And shadowy robes like cloud.
' Or as Spring, with a spray in your hair
Of blossoms as yet unblown ;
It will suit you well, for our youth should
wear
The bloom in the bud alone.
'' Or drift from the outer gloom
With the soft white silence of Snow :"
I should melt myself with the warm, close
room —
Or my own life's burning. No.
" Then fly through the glitter and mirth
As a Bird of Paradise : "
Nay, the waters I drink have touch'd the
earth :
I breathe no summer of spice.
" Then " Hush : if I go at all,
(It will make them stare and shrink,
It will look so strange at a Fancy Ball,)
I will go as Myself, I think !
TWELVE HOURS A TART.
HE loved me. But he loved, likewise,
This morning's world in bloom and wings ;
Ah, does he love the world that lies
In dampness, whispering shadowy things,
Under this little band of moon?
He loves me ? Will he fail to see
A phantom hand has touch'd my hair
(And waver'd, withering, over me)
To leave a subtle grayness there,
Below the outer shine of June ?
He loves me ? Would he call it fair,
Theflush'd half-flower lie left me, say?
For it has pass'd beneath the glare
And from my bosom drops away,
Shaken into the grass with pain ?
He loves me ? Well, I do not know.
A song in plumage cross'd the hill
At sunrise when I felt him go —
And song and plumage now are still.
He could not praise the bird again.
He loves me ? Vail'd in mist I stand,
My veins less high with life than when
To-day's thin dew was in the land,
Vaguely less beautiful than then —
Myself a dimness with the dim.
He loves me ? I am faint with fear.
| He never saw me quite so old ;
I never met him quite so near
My grave, nor quite so pale and cold : —
Nor quite so sweet, he says, to him !
TO-DAY.
AH, real thing of bloom and breath,
I can not love you while you stay.
Put on the dim, still charm of death,
Fade to a phantom, float away,
And let me call you Yesterday !
Let empty flower-dust at my feet
Remind me of the buds you wear ;
Let the bird's quiet show how sweet
The far-off singing made the air ;
And let your dew through frost look fair.
In mourning you I shall rejoice.
Go : for the bitter word may be
A music — in the vanish'd voice ;
And on the dead face I may see
How bright its frown has been to me.
Then in the haunted grass I'll sit,
Half careful in your wither'd place,
And watch your lovely shadow flit
Across To-morrow's sunny face,
And vex her with your p,-rfect grace.
So, real thing of bloom nnd breath,
I weary of you while you stay.
Put on the dim, still charm of death,
Fade to a phantom, float away,
And let me call you Yesterday !
MEETING A MIRROR.
BELOVED of beautiful and eager eyes,
It had its honors from the guests below;
But it went somewhat nearer to the skies
As it grew old, you know.
Still, from the gilded splendor of the day
That Vanity sees shining in its plsuv.
1 turned with' yearning for the pleased, slow
way
It used to hold my face.
444
MRS. S. M. B. PI ATT.
Far up the stair and sliunn'd of faded eyes
I found the thing that I had loved before :
It took my face, grew dead- white with sur
prise,
Held it — then saw no more !
Suddenly blinded : for the Mirror shed
Tears for dim hair it praised to suns
gone by,
And One to whom once of it I gayly said,
" My rival — dear as I ! "
Companions, in our time, of pleasant lights,
I thought, and music and rich foreign
blooms,
What shall we find for those fair evening-
sights
In lonesome upper rooms ?
The misty Mirror show'd a calm reproof,
Receiving there a higher company,
In dust and empty silence near the roof,
Than we were wont to see.
Its pride in jewel'd reverence was gone,
And quiet tenderness was in its place,
That took the sweet stars, as they gliin-
mer'd on
In chill clouds, to its grace.
EARTH IN HEAVEN.
SOMEWHERE, my friend, in the beautiful
skies,
Awaiting us lovely and clear,
We shall find all beauty that leaves our
eyes
So vacant in vanishing here :
Not the human alone has died
To go up and be glorified.
I shall find my childhood playing there
In the grass where it used to play,
And see our red-birds brighten the 'air;
Again as a girl I shall stray
On the hills where the snow-drops grew,
And hear the wild doves in the dew.
I si i;ill feel the darkness dripping with rain
On the old home-roof ; I shall see
The white rose-bud in the yard again,
And the sweet -brier climbing the tree,
With its pretty young blooms that fell
Below to be drown'd in the well.
And sometimes a night, with blossoming
hours
In a crescent's early gleam,
Will let a Dream flutter out of its flowers,
With no oilier name but a Dream,
To my breast, with a timid grace,
And wings o'er its, blushing face.
Ah ! you smile in the dark ; you smile, and
refuse
My faith in these sweet faded things ;
But I tell you I know that my soul would
lose
One-half of the strength in its wings
If these were not keeping their light,
As the angels in Heaven, to-ui^ht.
LAST WORDS.
OVER A LITTLE BED AT NIGHT.
GOOD-NIGHT, pretty sleepers of mine —
I never shall see you again :
Ah, never in shadow nor shine ;
Ah, never in dew nor in rain !
In your small dreaming-dresses of white,
With the wild-bloom you gather'd to-day
In your quiet shut hands, from the light
And the dark you will wander away.
Though no graves in the bee-haunted grass,
And no love in the beautiful sky,
Shall take you as yet, you will pass,
With this kiss, through these tear-drops,
Good- by !
With less gold and more gloom in their
hair,
When the buds near have faded to flowers,
Three faces may wake here as fair —
But older than yours are, by hours !
Good-night, then, lost darlings of mine —
I never shall see you again-.
Ah, never in shadow nor shine ;
Ali, never in dew nor in rain !
THE END OF THE RAINBOW.
MAY you go to find it ? You must, I fear ;
Ah, lighted young eyes, could I show you
how
" Is it past those lilies that look so near ?"
It is past all flowers. Will you listen,
now ?
The pretty new moons faded out of the sky,
The bees and butterflies out of the air,
And sweet wild songs would flutter and
fly
Into wet dark leaves and the snow's
white glare.
There were winds and shells full of lone
some cries,
There were lightnings and mists along
the way,
And the deserts would glitter against my
eyes,
Where the beautiful phantom-fountains
play.
At last, in a place very dusty and bare,
Some little dead birds I had petted to
sing',
Some little dead flowers I had gather'd to
wear,
Some wither'd thorns and an empty ring,
Lay scatter'd. My fairy story is told.
(It does not please her : she has not
smiled.)
What is it you say ? — Did I find the gold ?
Why, I found the End of the Rainbow,
child !
MRS. S. M. B. PI ATT.
445
TWO BLUSH-ROSES.
A BLUSH-ROSE lay in the summer ;
There were golden lights in the sky,
And a woman saw the blossom
As she stood with her lover nigh.
A band in the flowering distance
Play'd a dreamy Italian air,
Like a memory changed to music,
And it drifted everywhere.
'T was an exiled love of its Southland,
That air, and its delicate wails
Were only the wandering echoes
Of, the songs of nightingales.
" I love you," he tenderly whisper'd ;
" I love you," she answer'd as low :
And the music grew sweeter and sweeter,
Because it had listen'd, I know.
But she look'd at the rose in the summer,
And said, with a tremulous tear,
" The love that now beat* in my bosom
Will bloom in a blush-rose next year."
A blush-rose lay in the summer ;
There were golden lights in the sky,
And a woman saw the blossom —
As she stood with her lover nigh.
The band in the flowering distance
Play'd the dreamy Italian air,
Like a memory changed to music,
And it drifted everywhere.
" I love you," he tenderly whisper'd ;
" I love you," she timidly said :
And the music grew sadder and sadder,
And the blush-rose before them dropped
dead.
Then he knew that the music remember'd,
And knew the love that had beat
Last year in her beautiful bosom
Lay dead in the rose at his feet.
OF A PARTING.
UNDER a calm of stars, my own,
Under a drooping' crescent light,
You go, while fairy sounds are blown
Out of the dreams of winds, my owrn —
You go across the night ;
But on some far-off strand of sunrise
Our hearts meet in radiant bliss,
Not damp, like this !
You go ; the calm of stars must go,
The crescent light, the fairy sounds ;
Billows of cloud will overflow
The golden skies : but you must, go.
And in its stormy rounds
The dark will hear low, fluttering voices
Cry in my heart, like lonesome birds,
For your sweet words.
lou go, and twilights made for love
Will gloom between us, dim with dew ;
The spring-loosed music of the dove
Will search the emerald woods for love,
And I will long for you,
Among the blue and pearly blossoms
Far on the mossy hills, alone,
My own, my own.
But you must loose my hands and go.
Haste with those tremulous words of pain,
For I, most loved of all, I know
(The thought is full of tears) some go
And never come again ;
So wait, and let me look forever
Into the* tenderness that lies
In those deep eyes.
Ah ! you are g'one ; and I — I hold
My vacant arms to all who part,
And weep for them, and long to fold
Those strangers close, and say : " I hold
Your sorrow in my heart ; "
But look — the calm of stars is o'er us,
And we go toward their lighted shore,
And part no more.
A DISENCHANTMENT.
AND thou wast but a breathing May
Embodied by delicious dreams,
And drifted o'er my wandering way
On fancy's swift and shining streams.
Thine eyes were only violets,
Thy lips but buds of crimson bloom,
Thy hair, coiled sunshine — vain regrets !
Thy soul, a brief perfume.
And when the time of mists and chills
Fell where the sweet wild roses gre w,
And took them from the shadowy hills,
It took my lovely vision too ;
And when I came again to find
The charm which used to till the air,
A sorrow struck me mute and blind —
Thou wast not anywhere !
Yet something met me in thy place,
Something, they said, with looks like thine,
With tresses full of golden grace
And lips flush'd red with beauty's wine ;
With voice of silvery swells and falls
And dreamy eyes still sweetly blue —
But, then, the reptile's nature crawls
Beneath the rainbow's hue.
Wroman, all things below, above,
Look pale and drear and glimmering now,
For I have loved thee with a love
Whose passionate deeps such things as
thou
May never sound. And, with a moan,
The chill'd tide of that love has rolled
Above my heart, and made it stone,
And oh, so cold, so cold !
I saw thee by a magic lamp
Wfhose warm and gorgeous blaze is gone
And o'er me shivers, gray and damp,
The dimness of the real's dawn.
Oh, I am like to one who stands
Where late a vision smiled in air,
And murmurs, with, outstretching hands,
" Where is my Angel — where ? "
446
MRS. s. M. B. PIATT.
QUESTIONS OF THE HOUR.
"Do angels wear white dresses, say?
Always, or only in the summer? Do
Their l>irtlid:iv.s have to come like mine, in
May •:
Do they have scarlet sashes then, or blue?
"When little Jessie died last night,
IIo\v could she walk to Heaven — it is so
far ?
How did she find the way without a light?
There was n't even any moon or star.
" Will she have red or golden wings?
Then will she have to be a bird, and fly ?
Do tliev take men like presidents and king's
In hearses with black plumes clear to the
sky '!
" How old is God ? Has He gray hair ?
Can He see yet '>. Where did He have to
stay
Before— you know — he had made — Any
where Y
Who dot's He pray to — when He has to
pray V
" How many drops are in the sea?
How many stars? \\ell, then, you
ought to know
How many flowers are on an apple-tree?
How does the wind look when it doesn't
blow •>.
" Where does the rainbow end ? And why
Did — Captain Kidd — bury the gold there?
When will this world burn*? And will the
firemen try
To put the fire out with the engines then ?
" If you should ever die, may we
Have pumpkins growing in The garden, so
My fairy go.lmother can come for me,
When there's a prince's ball, and let me go?
" Read Cinderella just once more
W hat makes — men's other wives — so
mean ? " I know
That I was tired, it may be cross, before
I shut the painted book for her to go.
Hours later, from a child's white bed
I heard the timid, last queer question
start :
" Mamma, art- you— my stepmother?" it
said.
The innocent reproof crept to my heart.
A WALK TO MY OWN GRAVE.
[WITH THREE CHILDREN.]
Tn I.KK ! do not stop to cry.
" The path is long?— we walk so slow ?
But we shall get there by and by.
Kvery step that we go'
Is one step nearer, you know:
And your mother's grave will be
Such a pretty place to see.
" Will there b^ marble there,
With doves, or lambs, or lilies ? " No.
Keep white yourselves. Why should you
care
If they are as white as snow,
When the lilies can not blow,
And the doves can never moan,
Nor the lambs bleat — in the stone ?
You want some flowers f Oh !
We shall not find them on the way.
Only a few brier-roses grow,
Here and there, in the sun, I say.
It is dusty and dry all day,
But at evening there is shade,
And you will not be afraid ?
Ah. the flowers f Surely, yes.
At the end there will be a few,
" Violets ? Violets ? " So I guess,
And a little grass and dew ;
And some birds — you want them blue ?
And a spring, too, as I think,
Where we will rest and drink.
Now kiss me and be good,
For you can go back home and play.
This is my grave here in the wood,
Where I, for a while, must stay.
Wait — will you always pray,
Though you are sleepy, at night ?
There ! do not forget me— quite.
Keep the baby sweetly drest,
And give him milk and give him toys ;
Rock him, as I did, to his rest,
And never make any noise.
Brown-eyed girl and blue-eyed boys,
Until he wakes. Good -by,
And do not stop to cry !
ON A WEDDING DAY.
I LOOK far-off across the blue,
Still distance vague with woods and Spring,
The Earth is sweet with buds and dew;
The birds their early carols sing.
I look, and somehow wish the hours
Held calm and sun and bloom alone :
No fallen leaves, no wither'd flowers,
No storm, no wreck, no mist, no moan ;
No painted palms of air on sand,
No poisons where the spice-winds blow,
No dark shapes haunting sea and land —
But wherefore am 1 dreaming so?
It is because this music swells
Across the lighted April day —
Because I hear your bridal bells,
Fair girl, a thousand miles away.
Yes, lovely in a holy place,
Enchanted by my dream you rise :
The young blush-roses on your face,
The timid darkness in your eyes.
And, golden on vour hand, I see
The glitter of n sacred thing:
I wish some Fairy, friend, may be
Slave of the ring— your wedding ring !
MKS. LOUISE CHANDLEK MOULTOX.
THE SONG OF A SUMMER.
I PLUCKED an apple from off a tree,
Golden and rosy, and fair to see —
The sunshine had fed it with warmth and
light—
The dews had freshened it night by. night,
And high on the topmost bough it grew,
Where the winds of heaven about it blew,
And while the mornings were soft and
young
The wild-birds circled, and soared, and
sung —
There, in the storm, and calm, and shine,
It ripened and brightened, this apple of
mine,
Till the day I plucked it from off the tree,
Golden and rosy, and fair to see.
How could I guess, 'neatli that daintiest
rind,
That the core of sweetness I hoped to find, —
The innermost hidden heart of the bliss
Which dews and winds and the sunshine's
kiss
Had tendered and fostered by day and
night, —
Was black with mildew and bitter with
blight:
Golden and rosy, and fair of skin,
Nothing but ashes and ruin within ?
Ah ! never again with toil and pain
Will I strive the topmost bough to gain —
Though its wind-swung apples are fair to
see,
On a lower branch is the fruit for me.
TO MY HEART.
Ix thy long, lonely times, poor aching
heart !
When days are slow, and silent nights are
sad,
Take cheer, weak heart, remember and be
glad,
For some one loved thee.
Some one, indeed, who cared for fading
face,
For time-touched hair, and weary-falling
arm,
And in thy very sadness found a charm
To make him love thee.
God knc'As thy days are desolate, poor
heart !
As thou dost sit alone, and dumbly wait
For what comes not, or comes, alas ! too
late,
But some one loved thee.
Take cheer, poor heart, remembering what
he said,
And how of thy lost youth he missed no
grace,
But saw some subtler beauty in thy face,
So well he loved thee.
It may be, on Time's farther shore, the
dead
Love the sweet shades of those they missed
on this,
And dream, in heavenly rest, of earth's lost
bliss —
So he shall love thee.
Till then take cheer, poor, silent, aching
heart ;
Content thee with the face he once found
fair,
Mourn not for fading bloom, or time-touched
hair,
Since he hath loved thee.
THE SPRING IS LATE.
SHE stood alone amidst the April fields —
Brown, sodden fields, all desolate and
bare —
•'' The spring is late," she said — " the faith
less spring,
That should have come to make the mea
dows fair.
"Their sweet South left too soon, among
the trees
The birds, bewildered, flutter, to and fro;
For them no green boughs wait — their mem
ories
Of last year's April had deceived them so.
" Beneath a sheltering pine some tender
buds
Looked out, and saw the hollows filled
with snow ;
On such a frozen world they closed their
eyes ;
When spring is cold, how can the blossoms
blow ? "
She watched the homeless birds, the slow,
sad spring,
The barren fields, and shivering, naked
trees :
"Thus God has dealt with me, his child,"
she said —
" I wait my spring-time, and am cold
like these.
448
M R S . L O U I S E C II A X D L E R M 0 U L T 0 X .
" To them will come the fulness of their
time ;
Their spring, though late, will make the
meadows fair;
Shall I, who wait like them, like them be
blessed?
I am His own — doth not my Father care ? "
A WOMAN'S WAITING.
the apple-tree blossoms, in May,
ANY sat and watched as the sun went
down ;
Behind us the road stretched back to the
cast,
On, through the meadows, to Danbury
town.
Silent we sat, for our hearts were full,
Silently Watched the reddening sky,
And saw the clouds across the west
Like the phantoms of ships sail silently.
Robert had come with a story to tell,
I knew it before he had said a word —
It looked from his eye, and it shadowed his
face —
He was going to march with the Twenty-
third.
We had been neighbors from childhood up —
Gone to school by the self-same way,
Climbed the same steep woodland paths,
Knelt in the same old church to pray.
We had wandered together, boy and girl,
Where wild flowers grew and wild grapes
hung ;
Tasted the sweetness of summer days
When hearts are true and life is young.
But never a love- word had crossed his lips,
Never a hint of pledge or vow,
Until, as the pun went down that night,
His tremulous kisses touched my brow.
" Jenny," he said, " I've a work to do
For God and my conntiy and the right—
True hearts, strong arms, are needed now,
I dare not stay away from the fight.
"Will you give me a pledge to cheer me
on —
A hope to look forward to by-and-by ?
Will you wait for me, Jennv, till i come
back?"
" I will wait," I answered, " until I die."
The May moon rose as we walked that
night
Back- through the meadows to Danbury
town,
And one stnr rose and shone by her side —
Calmly and sweetly they* both looked
down.
The scent of blossoms was in the air,
Tin- sky was blue and the eve was bright,
And Robert said, as he walked by my side,
" Old Danbury town is fair to-night.
" I shall think of it, Jenny, when far away,
Placid and still 'neath the moon as now —
I shall see it, darling, in many a dream,
And you with ihe moonlight on your
brow."
Xo matter what else were his parting
words —
They are mine to treasure until I die,
With the clinging kisses and lingering looks,
The tender pain of that fond good-by.
I did not weep — 1 tried to be brave —
I watched him until he was out of sight —
Then suddenly all the world grew dark,
And I was blind in the bright May night.
Blind and helpless I slid to the ground
And lay with the night -dews on my hair,
Till the moon was down, and the dawn was
up,
And the fresh May morn rose clear and
fair.
He was taken and I was left —
Left to wait and to watch and pray —
Till there came a message over the wires,
Chilling the air of the August day.
Killed in a skirmish eight or ten —
Wounded and helpless as many more —
All of them our Connecticut men —
From the little town of Danbury, four.
But I only saw a single name —
Of one 'who was all the w >rld tome
I promised to wait for him till I died —
Oh God, O Heaven, how long will it be?
THE SINGER.
WITHIX the crimson gloom
Of that dim, shaded room
I heard a singer sing.
She sang of life and death,
Of joys that end with breath,
And joys the end doth brin^ ;
Of passion's bitter pain,
And memory's tears like rain,
Which will not ccate to flow ;
Of the deep grave's delights,
Where through long days and nights
They hear the green things grow,
Cool -rooted flowers, which come
So near to that still home,
Their ways the dead must know,
And shivers in the grass,
When winds of summer pass,
And whisper as they go,
Of the mad life above,
Where men like masquers move ;
Or are they ghosts — who knows ?-
Sad ghosts who cannot die,
And watch slow years go by
Amid those painted show- —
MRS. LOUISE CHANDLER MOULTON.
449
Who knows ? For on her tongue
What never may be sung
Seemed trembling, and we wait
To catch the strain 'complete,
More full, but not more sweet,
Beyond the golden gate.
A WEED.
How shall a little weed grow
That has no sun ?
Rains fall and north winds blow —
What shall be clone ?
Out come some little pale leaves
At the spring's call,
But the harsh north winds blow,
And the sad rains fall.
Dost try to keep it warm
With fickle breath ?
He must, who would give life,
Be Lord of death.
Some day you forget the weed —
Man's thoughts are brief —
And your coldness steals like frost
Through each pale leaf,
Till the weed shrinks back to die
On kinder sod ;
Shall a life which found no sun,
In death find God ?
HOW LONG ?
IF on my grave the summer grass were
growing,
Or heedless winter winds across i blowing,
Through joyous June, or desolate December,
How long, sweetheart, how long' \vould you
remember, —
How long, dear love, how long ?
For brightest eyes would open to the sum
mer,
And sweetest smiles would greet the sweet
new-comer,
And on your lips grow kisses for the taking,
When all the summer buds to bloom are
breaking, —
How long, dear love, how long ?
To the dim land where sad-eyed ghosts walk
only,
Where lips are cold, and waiting hearts are
lonely,
I would not call you from your youth's warm
blisses,
Fill up your glass and crown it with new
kisses, —
How long, dear love, how long ?
Too gay, in June, you might be to regret me,
And living lip* might woo you to forget me ;
But ah, sweetheart, I think you would re
member
When winds were weary in your life's De
cember, —
So long, dear love, so long.
A PROBLEM.
MY darling has a merry eye,
And voice like silver bells :
How shall I win her, prithee, say —
By what magic spells ?
If I frown she shakes her head,
If I weep she smiles ;
Time would fail me to recount
All her wilful wiles.
She flouts me so — she stings me so —
Yet will not let me stir —
In vain I try to pass her by,
My little chestnut bur.
When I yield to every whim
She strait begins to" pout.
Teach me how to read my love,
How to find her out !
For flowers she gives me thistle blooms —
Her turtle doves are crows —
I am the groaning weather-vane,
And she the wind that blows.
My little love ! My teazing love !
Was woman made for man —
A rose that blossomed from his side ?
Believe it — those who can.
/went to sleep — I'm sure of it —
Some luckless summer morn ;
A rib was taken from my side,
And of it made a thorn.
But still I seek by some fond art
To link it to my life,
Come, solve my problem, married men :
Teach me to win my wife.
MAY-FLOWERS.
IF you catch a breath of sweetness,
And follow the odorous hint
Through woods where the dead leaves
rustle,
And the golden mosses glint,
Along the spicy sea-coast,
Over the desolate down,
You will find the dainty May-flowers
When you come to Plymouth town.
Where the shy Spring tends her darlings,
And hides them away from sight,
Pull oft' the covering leaf-sprays,
And gather them pink and wrhite,
Tinted by mystical moonlight,
Freshened by frosty dew,
Till the fair, transparent blossoms
To their pure perfection grew.
Then carry them home to your lady,
For flower of the spring is she, —
Pink and white, and dainty and slight,
And lovely as lovely can be.
Shall they die because she is fair,
Or live because she is sweet ?
They will know for which they were born,
But von — must wait at her feet.
MRS. CELIA TIIAXTEK.
EXPECTATION.
THROUGHOUT the lonely house the whole
day long
- The wind-harp's fitful music sinks and
swells, —
A cry of pain, sometimes, or sad and strong,
Or faint, like broken peals of silver bells.
Across the little garden comes the breeze,
Bows all its cups of flame, and brings to
me
Its breath of mignonette and bright sweet
peas,
With drowsy murmurs from the encircling
sea.
In at the open door a crimson drift
Of fluttering, fading woodbine leaves is
blown,
And through the clambering vine the sun
beams sift,
And trembling shadows on the floor are
thrown.
I climb the stair, and from the window lean
Seeking thy sail, 0 love, that still delays ;
Longing to catch its glimmer, searching keen
The jealous distance veiled in tender haze.
What care I if the pansies purple be,
Or sweet the wind-harp wails through the
slow hours ;
Or that the lulling music of the sea
Comes woven with the perfume of the
flowers?
Thou comest not ! I ponder o'er the leaves,
The crimson drift behind the open door :
Soon shall we listen to a wind that grieves,
Mourning this glad year, dead forever-
more.
And, 0 my love, shall we on some sad day
Find joVs and hopes low fallen like the
leaves,
Blown by life's chilly autumn wrind away
In withered heaps God's eye alone per
ceives ?
Come thou, and save me from my dreary
thought !
Who dares to question Time, what it may
bring'.'
Yet round us lies the radiant summer,
fraught
Wit h beauty : must we dream of suffering ?
Yea, even so. Through this enchanted land,
This morning-red of life, we go to meet
The tempest in the desert, hand in han;l,
Along (Joel's paths of pain, that seek His
feet.
But this one golden moment, — hold it fast !
The light grows long : low in the west the
sun,
Clear red and glorious, slowly sinks at last,
And while I muse, the tranquil day is done.
The land breeze freshens in thy gleaming
sail 1
Across the singing waves the shadows
creep :
Under the ne\v moon's thread of silver pale,
With the first star, thou comest o'er the
deep !
THE SANDPIPER.
ACROSS the narrow beach we flit,
One little sandpiper and I
And fast I gather, bit by bit,
The scattered driftwood bleached and dry.
The wild waves reach their hands for it,
The wild wind raves, the tide runs high,
As up and down the beach we flit, —
One little sandpiper and I.
Above our heads the sullen clouds
Scud black and swift across the sky ;
Like silent ghosts in misty shrouds
Stand out the white light-houses high.
Almost as far as eye can reach
I see the close- reefed vessels fly,
As fast we flit along the beach, —
One little sandpiper and I.
I watch him as he skims along
Lettering his sweet and mournful cry.
lie starts not at my fitful song,
Or flash of fluttering drapery.
He has no thought of any wrong ;
He scans me with a fearless eye.
Stanch friends are we, well tried and strong,
The little sandpiper and I.
Comrade, where wilt thou be to-night
When the loosed storm breaks furiously '?
My driftwood fire will burn so bright !
To what warm shelter canst thou Jiy ?
I do not fear for thee, though wroth
The tempest rushes through the sky :
For are we not God's children both,
Thou, little sandpiper, and 1 V
THE MINUTE-GUNS.
I STOOD within the little cove,
Full of the morning's life and hope,
While heavily the eager waves
Charged thundering up the rocky slope.
MBS. CELIA THAXTER.
451
The splendid breakers ! How they rushed,
All emerald green and flashing white.
Tumultuous in the morning sun,
With cheer and sparkle and delight !
And freshly blew the fragrant wind,
The wild sea wind, across their tops,
And caught the spray and flung it far
In sweeping showers of glittering drops.
Within the cove all flashed and foamed
With many a fleeting rainbow hue ;
Without, gleamed bright against the sky,
A tender wavering line of blue,
Where tossed the distant wraves, and far
Shone silver-white a quiet sail ;
And overhead the soaring gulls
With graceful pinions stemmed the gale.
And all my pulses thrilled with joy,
Watching the winds' and waters' strife,
With sudden rapture, — and I cried,
" O sweet is Life ! Thank God for life ! '
Sailed any cloud across the sky,
Marring this glory of the sun's ?
Over the sea, from distant forts,
There came the boom of minute-guns !
War-tidings ! Many a brave soul fled,
And many a heart the message stuns !
I saw no more the joyous waves,
I only heard the minute-guns.
ROCK WEEDS.
So bleak these shores, wind-swept and all
the year
Washed by the wild Atlantic's restless
tide,
You would not dream that flowers the woods
hold dear
Amid such desolation dare abide.
Yet when the bitter winter breaks, some day,
With soft winds fluttering her garments'
hem,
Up from the sweet South comes the linger
ing May,
Sets the first wind-flower trembling on its
stem ;
Scatters her violets with lavish hands,
White, blue, and amber ; calls the colum
bine,
Till like clear flame in lonely nooks, gay
bands
Swinging their scarlet bells, obey the sign ;
Makes buttercups and dandelions blaze,
And throws in glimmering patches here
and there
The little eyebright's pearls, and gently lays
The impress of her beauty everywhere.
Later, June bids the sweet wild rose to blow,
Wakes from its dream the drowsy pim
pernel ;
L^nfolds the bindweed's ivory buds that glow
As delicately blushing as a shell.
Then purple Iris smiles, and hour by hour,
The fair procession multiplies ; and soon,
In clusters creamy white, the elder-flower
Waves its broad disk against the rising
moon.
O'er quiet beaches shelving to the sea
Tall mulleins sway, and thistles ; all day
long
Flows in the wooing water dreamily,
"With subtle music in its slumberous song.
Herb-robert hears, and princess' - feather
bright,
And gold-thread clasps the little skull-cap
blue ; •
And troops of swallows, gathering for their
flight,
O'er golden-rod and asters hold review.
The barren island dreams in flowers, while
blow
The south winds, drawing haze o'er sea
and land ;
Yet the great heart of ocean, throbbing slow,
Makes the frail blossoms vibrate where
they stand ;
And hints of heavier pulses soon to shake
Its mighty breast when summer is no more,
And devastating waves sweep on and break,
And clasp with girdle white the iron shore.
Close folded, safe within the sheltering seed,
Blossom and bell and leafy beauty hide ;
Nor icy blast, nor bitter spray they heed,
But' patiently their wondrous change
abide.
The heart of God through his creation stirs,
We thrill to feel it, trembling as the flowers
That die to live again, — his messengers,
To keep faith firm in these sad souls of
ours.
The waves of Time may devastate our lives,
The frosts of age may check our failing
breath,
They shall not touch the spirit that survives
Triumphant over doubt and pain and
death.
A SUMMER DAY.
AT day-break in the fresh light, joyfully
The' fishermen drew in their laden net ;
The shore shone rosy purple and the sea
Was streaked with violet ;
And pink with sunrise, many a shadowy sail
Lay southward, lighting up the sleeping
bay ;
And in* the west the white moon, still and
pale,
Faded before the day.
Silence was everywhere. The rising tide
Slowly filled every cove and inlet small ;
A musical low whisper, multiplied,
You heard, and that was all.
MRS. CELIA THAXTER.
No clouds at dawn, but as the sun climbed
higher,
White columns, thunderous, splendid, up
the sky
Floated and stood, heaped in his steady fire.
A stately company.
Stealing along the coast from cape to cape
The weird mirage crept tremulously on,
In many a magic change and wondrous shape,
Throbbing beneath the sun.
At noon the wind rose, swept the glassy sea
To sudden ripple, thrust against the clouds
A strenuous shoulder, gathering steadily
.Drove them before in crowds ;
Till all the west was dark, and inky black
The level-ruffled water underneath,
And up the wind cloud tossed, — a ghostly
rack,
In many a ragged wreath.
Then sudden roared the thunder, a great
peal
Magnificent, that broke and rolled away ;
And down the wind plunged, like a furious
keel,
Cleaving the sea to spray ;
And brought the rain sweeping o'er land
and sea.
And then was tumult ! Lightning sharp
and keen,
Thunder, wind, rain, — a mighty jubilee
The heaven and earth between !
Loud the roused ocean sang, a chorus grand ;
A solemn music rolled in undertone
Of waves that broke about on either hand
The little island lone ;
Where, joyful in His tempest as His calm,
Held in the hollow of that hand of His,
I joined with heart and soul in God's great
psalm,
Thrilled with a nameless bliss.
Soon lulled the wind, the summer storm soon
died ;
The shattered clouds went eastward, drift
ing slow ;
From the low sun the rain- fringe swept
aside,
Bright in his rosy glow,
And wide a splendor streamed through all
the sky;
O'er sea and land one soft, delicious blush,
That touched the gray rocks lightly, tenderly;
A transitory flush.
Warm, odorous gusts blew off the distant
land.
With spice of pine-woods, breath of hay
new-mown,
O'er miles of waves and sea, scents cool and
bland,
Full in our faces blown.
Slow faded the sweet light, and peacefully
The quiet stars came out, one after one :
The holy twilight fell upon the sea,
The summer day Avas done.
Such unalloyed delight its hours had given,
Musing, this thought, rose in my grateful
mind,
That God, who watches all things, up in
heaven,
With patient eyes and kind,
Saw and was pleased, perhaps, one child of
his
Dared to be happy like the little birds,
Because He gave his children days like this
Rejoicing beyond words ;
Dared, lifting up to Him untroubled eyes
In gratitude that worship is, and prayer,
Sing and be glad with ever new surprise,
He made his world so fair !
NOVEMBER.
THERE is no wind at all to-night
To dash the drops against the pane ;
No sound abroad, nor any light,
And sadly falls the autumn rain ;
There is no color in the world,
No lovely tint on hill or plain ;
The summer's golden sails are furled,
And sadly falls the autumn rain.
The Earth lies tacitly beneath,
As it were dead to joy or pain :
It does not move, it does not breathe, —
And sadly falls the autumn rain.
And all my heart is patient too,
I wait till it shall wake again ;
The songs of spring shall sound an£w,
Though sadly falls the autumn rain.
YELLOW-BIRD.
YELLOW-BIRD, where did you learn that
song,
Perched on the trellis where grape-vines
clamber,
In and out fluttering, all day long,
With your golden breast bedropped with
amber ?
Where do you hide such a store of delight,
O delicate creature, tiny and slender,
Like a mellow morning sunbeam bright,
And overflowing with music tender !
You never learned it at all, the song
Springs from your heart in rich complete
ness,
Beautiful, blissful, clear and strong,
Steeped in the summer's ripest sweet nes?.
To think we are neighbors of yours ! How
fine!
Oh what a pleasure to watch you together,
Bringing your fern-down and floss to re-line
The nest worn thin by the winter weather!
Send up your full notes like worshipful
prayers ;
Yellow-bird, sing while the summer's be
fore you ;
Little you dream that, in spite of their cares,
Here's a whole family, proud to adore you !
MKS. ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY.
PER TEXEBRAS, LUMINA.
I KNOW how, through the golden hours
When summer sunlight floods the deep,
The fairest stars of all the heaven
Climb up, unseen, the effulgent steep.
Orion girds him with a flame ;
And king-like, from the eastward seas
Comes Aldebaran, with his train
Of Evades and Pleiades.
In far meridian pride, the Twins
Build, side by side, their luminous thrones
And Sirius and Procyon pour
A splendor that the day disowns.
And stately Leo, undismayed,
With fiery footstep tracks the sun,
To plunge adown the western blaze,
Sublimely lost in glories won.
I know if I were called to keep
Pale morning-watch with grief and pain,
Mine eyes should see their gathering might
Rise grandly through the gloom again.
And when the winter Solstice holds
In his diminished path the sun ;
When hope and growth and joy are o'er,
And all our harvesting is done ;
When, stricken like our mortal life,
Darkened and chill, the Year lays down
The summer beauty that she wore,
Her summer stars of harp and crown ;
Thick trooping with their golden tread,
They come as nightfall fills the sky, —
Those stronger, grander sentinels, —
And mo ant resplendent guard on high !
Ah, who shall shrink from dark and cold,
Or dread the sad and shortening days,
When God doth only so unfold
A wider glory to our gaze ?
When loyal truth and holy trust,
And kingly strength, defying pain,
Stern courage, and sure brotherhood
Are born from out the depths again ?
Dear country of our love and pride !
So is thy stormy winter given !
So, through the terrors that betide,
Look up, and hail thy kindling heaven !
BEHIND THE MASK.
IT was an old, distorted face, —
^ An uncouth visage, rough and wild, —
Yet, from behind, with laughing grace,
Peeped the fresh beauty of a child.
And so, contrasting strange to-day,
My heart of youth doth inly ask
If half earth's wrinkled grimness may
Be but the baby in the mask.
Behind gray hairs and furrowed brow
And withered look that life puts on,
Each, as he wears It, comes to know
How the child hides, and is not gone.
For while the inexorable years
To saddened features fit their mould,
Beneath the work of time and tears
Waits something that will not grow old !
The rifted pine upon the hill,
Scarred by the lightning and the wind,
Through bolt and blight doth nurture still
Young fibres underneath the rind ;
And many a storm-blast, fiercely sent,
And wasted hope, and sinful stain,
Roughen the strange integument
The struggling soul must wear in pain ;
Yet when she comes to claim her own,
Heaven's angels, haply, shall not ask
For that last look the world hath known,
But for the face behind the mask !
LARVAE.
MY little maiden of four years old —
No myth, but a genuine child is she,
With her bronze-brown eyes and her curls
of gold —
Came, quite in disgust, one day, to me.
Rubbing her shoulder with rosy palm,
As the loathsome touch seemed yet to
thrill her,
She cried, " O mother ! I found on my arm
A horrible, crawling caterpillar ! " '
And with mischievous smile she could
scarcely smother,
Yet a glance in its daring half awed and
shy,
She added, "While they were about it,
mother,
I wish they 'd just finished the butterfly ! "
They were words to the thought of the soul
that turns
From the coarser form of a partial growth,
Reproaching the infinite patience that yearns
With an unknown glory to crown them
both.
Ah, look thou largely, with lenient eyes,
On whatfo beside thee may creep and cling,
MRS. ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY.
For the possible <j.lory that underlies
The passing phase of the meanest tiling!
What if God's great angels, whose \vsiit in^-
love
Beholdcth our pitiful life below,
From tlie holy height of their heaven above,
Could n't bear with the worm till the
wings should grow ''.
NORTHEAST.
WE had a week of rainy days ;
The heaven was gray, the earth was grim ;
And through a sea of hopeless haze
The dreamy daylight wandered dim.
The saddened trees, with weary boughs,
Drooped heavily, or sullen swayed
Slow answer to the sobs and soughs
The jaded east- wind, whimpering, made.
Faint as the dawn the noonday seemed,
With hardly more of stir or sound ;
The only noise or motion seemed
That dull, cold dropping on the ground.
Vainly the Soul her frame ignores ;
Deep answereth unto deep apart ;
And the great weeping out of doors
Touched the tear fountains in the heart.
So life looked drear, and heaven was dim ;
And though the Sun still strode the sky,
Through the thick gloom that shrouded him
Scarce trusted we the joy on high.
But, sudden, from the leafy dark, —
The close green covert rain-bestirred, —
Outburst'mg tremulously, hark,
The carol of a little bird !
Ali. long the storm ; yet none the less,
Hid from the utmost reach of ill,
And singing in the wilderness,
Some small, sweet hope waits blithely
still !
RELEASED.
A LITTLE, low-ceiled room. Four walls
Whose blank >\\\\\ out all else of life,
And crowded close within their bound
A world of pain, and toil, and strife.
Her world. Scarce furthermore .she knew
Of God's great globe that woudrously
Outrolls a glory of green earth
And frames it with the rot less sea.
Four closer walls of common pine ;
And therein lying, cold and still,
The weary flesh that long hath borne
Its patient mystery of ill.
Regardless now of work to do,
No queen more careless in her slate,
Hands crossed in an unbroken calm;
For other hands the work may wait.
Put by her implements of toil ;
Put by each coarse, intrusive sign;
She made a Sabbath when she died,
And round her breatlu s a rest divine.
Put by, at last, beneath the lid,
The exempted hands, the tranquil face ;
Uplift her in her dreamless sleep,
And bear her gently from the place.
Oft she hath ga/ed, with wistful eyes,
Out from that threshold on .the night ;
The narrow bourn she crosseth now ;
She standeth in the eternal light.
Oft she hath pressed, with aching feet,
Those broken steps that reach the door ;
Henceforth, with angels, she shall trea'd
Heaven's golden stair, forevermore !
BEAUTY FOR ASHES.
WE have no glory of the woods this year !
The Summer lieth dead upon her bier,
And parched and brown, with faint and tiut-
tering fall,
Gaunt arms drop down her melancholy pall.
Like some remorseful spirit she hath gone,
Finding no wedding garment to put on ;
From fever dropt to silence ; day by day,
Her green hope lost, — so perishing away.
All passion-burned were her meridian hours,
Untouched by any tenderness of showers:
Too late the wild winds and the penitent rain
Vex the dead days that are not born again.
So said we in the early autumn-time,
Missing the red leaf and the golden prime ;
And still the raiii fell with sweet, patient
woe,
Like heart sin-broken, that can only so.
Then there befell a wonder. Scathed and
burned,
Great trees stood leafless ; but the earth-soul
yearned
Toward her salvation, and it came to pass,- -
Green resurrection of young, gentle grass.
Fair in October as it had been May !
No matter for the season passed away,
For shortening suns, or useless little while :
Heaven's outright grace gave back that ver
nal smile.
We missed no more the golden and the red.
For joy that the deep heart was quick, no*
dead.
We saw as angels see ; through loss and sii,
nings :
All times are spring to God's dear new b^
ginnings.
THE THREE LIGHTS.
MY window that looks down the west,
\Vhere the cloud-thrones and islands rest,
One evening, to my random sight,
Showed forth this picture of delight.
The shifting glories were all gone ;
The clear blue stillness coming on ;
And the soft shade, 'twixt day and night,
Held the old earth in tender light.
MRS. ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY.
Up in the ether hung the horn
Of a young moon ; and, newly born
From out the shadows, trembled far
The shining of a single star.
Only a hand's breadth was between,
So close thev seemed, so sweet-serene,
As if in heaven some child and mother,
With peace untold, had found each other.
Then my glance fell from that fair sky
A little down, yet very nigh,
Just where the neighboring tree-tops made
A lifted line of billowy shade, —
And from the earth-dark twinkled clear
One other spark, of human cheer ;
A home-smile, telling where there stood
A farmer's house beneath the wood.
Only these three in all the space ;
Far telegraphs of various place.
Which seeing, this glad thought was mine,—
Be it but little candle-shine,
Or golden disk of moon that swings
Nearest- of all the heavenly things,
Or world in awful distance small,
One Light doth feed and link them all !
SUNLIGHT AND STARLIGHT.
GOD sets some souls in shade, alone ;
They have no daylight of their own :
Only in lives of happier ones
They see the shine of distant suns.
God knows. Content thee with thy night,
Thy greater heaven hath grander light.
To-day is close ; the hours are small ;
Thou sitt'st afar, and hast them all.
Lose the less joy that doth but blind ;
Reach forth a larger bliss to find.
To-day is brief : the inclusive spheres
Rain raptures of a thousand years.
HEARTH-GLOW.
IN the fireshine at the twilight,
The pictures that I see
Are less with mimic landscape bright
Than with life and mystery.
Where the embers flush and flicker
With their palpitating glow,
I see, fitfuller and quicker,
Heart-pulses come and go.
And here and there, with eager flame,
A little tongue of light
Upreaches earnestly to claim
A. somewhat out of sight.
I know, with instinct sure and high,
A somewhat must be there ;
Else should the fiery impulse die
In ashes of despair.
Through the red tracery I discern
A parable sublime ;
A solemn myth of souls that burn
In ordeals of time.
How the life-spark yearns and shivers
Till the whiteness o'er it creep !
Till the last, pale hope outquivers,
And quenches into sleep !
Till 'mid the dust of what has been,
It lieth dim and cold ;
Yet holdeth secretly, within,
Heart-fervor, as of old !
As from the darkening fireside
I slowly turn away,
I think how souls of men abide
The breaking of the day
When a morning touch shall stir again
Those ashes of the night
That gathered o'er our hearts of pain
To keep their life alight !
TWOFOLD.
A DOUBLE life is this of ours ;
A twofold form wherein we dwell :
And heaven itself is not so strange,
Nor half so far as teachers tell.
With weary feet we daily tread
The circle of a self-same round ;
Yet the strong soul may not be held
A prisoner in the petty bound.
The body walketh as in sleep,
A shadow among things that seem ;
While held in leash, yet faraway,
The spirit moveth in a dream.
A living dream of good or ill,
In caves of gloom or fields of light ;
Where purpose doth itself fulfill,
And longing love is instant sight.
Where time, nor space, nor blood, nor bond
May love and life divide in twain ;
But they whom truth hath inly joined
Meet inly on their common plane.
We* need not die to go to God ;
See how the daily prayer is given !
'T is not across a gulf we cry,
" Our Father, who dost dwell in heaven ! '
And " Let thy will on earth be done,
As in thy heaven," by this, thy child !
What is it but all prayers in one,
That soul and sense be reconciled ?
That inner sight and outer seem
No more in thwarting conflict strive ;
But doing blossom from the dream.
And the whole nature rise, alive?
There 's beauty waiting to be born,
And harmony that makes no sound ;
And bear we ever, unaware,
A glory that hath not been crowned.
And so we yearn, and so we sigh,
And reach for more than we can see;
And, witless of our folded wings,
Walk Paradise unconsciously ;
456
MRS. ADELINE D. T. WHITNEY.
And dimly feel the day divine
With vision half redeemed from night,
Till death shall fuse the double life
And God himself shall give us light !
UP IN THE WILD.
UP in the wild, where no one comes to look,
There lives and sings a little lonely brook :
Liveth and singeth in the dreary pines,
Yet creepeth onto where the daylight shines.
Pure from their heaven, in mountain chalice
caught,
It drinks the rains, as drinks the soul her
thought ;
And down dim hollows where it winds along,
Pours its life-burden of unlistened song.
I catch the murmur of its undertone,
That sigheth ceaselessly, Alone ! alone 1
And hear afar the Rivers gloriously
Shout on their paths to ward the shining sea !
The voiceful Rivers, chanting to the sun,
And wearing names of honor, every one :
Outreaching wide, and joining hand with
hand
To pour great gifts along the asking land.
Ah, lonely brook! Creep onward through
the pines ;
Press through the gloom to where the day
light shines !
Sing on among the stones, and secretly
Feel how the floods are all akin to thee !
Drink the sweet rain the gentle heaven
srndeth ;
Hold thine own path, howeverward it tend-
eth ;
For somewhere, underneath the eternal sky,
Thou, too, shalt find the Rivers, by and by !
EQUINOCTIAL.
TIIK sun of life has crossed the line ;
The summer-shine of lengthened light
Faded and failed, till where I stand
'T is equal day and equal night.
One after one, as dwindling hours,
Youth's glowing hopes have dropped away,
And soon may haivly leave the gleam
That coldly scores a winter's day.
I am not young ; I am not old ;
The (lush of morn, the sunset calm,
Paling and deepening, each to each,
Meet midway with a solemn charm.
One side 1 see the summer fields
Not yet disrobed of all their green ;
While westerly, along the hills,
Flame the first tints of frosty sheen.
Ah. middle point, where cloud and storm
Make battle-ground of this, my life !
Where, even-matched, the nighr'and day
Wage round me their September strife !
I bow me to the threatening gale ;
I know when that is overpast,
Among the peaceful harvest days,
An Indian summer comes at last !
THE SECOND MOTHERHOOD.
" He shi'11 gather the lambs in his arms, ana carry them In
bosom ; and shall gently lead those that are with young."
0 HEARTS that long ! 0 hearts that wait,
Burdened with love and pain,
Till the dear life-dream, earth-conceived,
In heaven be born again !
0 mother-souls, whose holy hope
Is sorrowful and blind,
Hear what He faith so tenderly
Who keepeth you in mind !
Of all his flock He hath for you
A sweet, especial grace ;
And guides you with a separate care
To his prepared place.
For all our times are times of type,
Foretokened on the earth ;
And still the waiting and the tears
Must go before the birth.
Still the dear Lord, with whom abides
All life that is to be,
Keeps safe the joy but half fulfilled
In his eternity.
Our lambs He carries in his arms
The heavenly meads among;
And gently leadeth here the souls
Love -burdened with their young !
THE LAST REALITY.
A CHILD'S SATIRE.
CHILDREN want always the " truliest "
things,
The things that come nearest to life ;
Grown-up and real: for — sweet little souls —
They believe in the world and his wife !
Grown-up is real : we stand in the light
Of their heaven with our pitiful shows,
Till the shams of our living become to their
sight
Most in earnest of all that it knows.
Kathie wanted a doll for her Christmas this
year,
A doll that could do something grand ;
" Not cry ; that 's for babies ; " nor might it
suffice
That she simply could sit and could stand.
" And I don't care for eyes that will open
and shut."
•" You did." " Well, the care is all gone.
I 've seen 'em enough, mamma ; / want a
doll
With hair that takes off and puts on! "
MKS. HELEN HUNT.
SPINNING.
LIKE a blind spinner in the sun,
I tread my days ;
I know that all the threads will run
Appointed ways ;
I know each day will bring its task,
And, being blind, 110 more I ask.
I do not know the use or name
Of that I spin ;
I only know that some one came,
And laid within
My hand the thread, and said, " Since you
Are blind, but one thing you can do."
Sometimes the threads so rough and fast
And tangled fly,
I know wild storms are sweeping past,
And fear that I
Shall fall ; but dare not try to find
A safer place, since I am blind.
I know not why, but I am sure
That tint and place,
In some great fabric to endure
Past time and race,
My threads will have ; so from the first,
Though blind, I never felt accurst.
I think, perhaps, this trust has sprung
From one short word
Said over me when I was young,—
So young, I heard
It, knowing not that God's name signed
My brow, and sealed me his, though blind.
But whether this be seal or sign
Within, without,
It matters not. The bond divine
I never doubt.
I know he set me here, and still,
And glad, and blind, I wait His will ;
But listen, listen, day by day,
To hear their tread
Who bear the finished web away,
And cut the thread,
And bring God's message in the sun,
" Thou pjor blind spinner, work is done."
THE PRINCE IS DEAD.
A EOOM in the palace is shut. The king
And the queen are sitting in black.
All day weeping servants will run and bring,
But the heart of the queen will lack
All things; and the eyes of the king will
swim
With tears which must not be shed,
But will make all the air float dark and
dim,
As he looks at each gold and silver toy,
And thinks how it gladdened the royal boy,
And dumbly writhes while the courtiers
read
How all the nations his sorrow heed.
The Prince is dead.
The hut has a door, but the hinge is weak,
And to-day the wind blows it back ;
There are two sitting there who do not
speak ;
They have begged a few rags of black.
They are hard at work, though their eyes
are wet
With tears which must not be shed ;
They dare not look where the cradle is set ;
They hate the sunbeam which plays on the
floor,
But will make the baby laugh out no more ;
They feel as if they were turning to stone,
They wish the neighbors would leave them
alone.
The Prince is dead.
SPOKEN.'
COUNTING the hours by bells and lights
We rose and sank ;
The waves on royal banquet-heights
Tossed off and drank
Their jewels made of sun and moon,
White pearls at midnight, gold at noon.
Counting the hours by bells and lights,
We sailed and sailed ;
Six lonely days, six lonely nights,
No ship we hailed.
Till all the sea seemed bound in spell,
And silence sounded like a knell.
At last, just when by bells and lights
Of seventh day
The dawn grew clear, in sudden flights
White sails away
To east, like birds, went spreading slow
Their wings which reddened in the glow.
No more we count the bells and lights ;
We laugh for joy.
The trumpets with their brazen mights
Call " Ship ahoy ! "
We hold each other's hands ; our cheeks
Are wet with tears ; but no one speaks.
In instant comes the sun and lights
The ship with fire ;
Each mast creeps up to dizzy heights,
A blazing spire ;
MRS. HELEN HUNT.
One faint " Ahoy," then all in vain
We look ; we are alone again.
I have forgotten bells and lights,
And waves which drank
Their jewels. up ; those days and nights
Which rose and sank
Have turned like other pasts, and fled,
And carried with them all their dead.
But every day that fire ship lights
My distant blue.
And every day glad wonder smites
My heart anew,
How in that instant each could heed
And hear the other's swift God-speed.
Counting by hours thy days and nights
In weariness,
0 patient soul, on godlike heights
Of loneliness,
1 passed thee by ; tears filled our eyes ;
The loud winds mocked and drowned our
cries.
The hours go by, with bells and lights ;
\Ve sail, we drift ;
Our souls in changing tasks and rites,
Find work and shrift.
But this I pray, and praying know
Till faith almost to joy can grow
That hour by hour the bells, the lights
Of sound of flame
Weave spell which ceaselessly recites
To thee a name,
And smiles which thou canst not forget
For thee are suns which never set.
AMREETA WINE.
SHE rose up from the golden feast,
And her voice rang like the sea ;
" Sir Knight, put down thy glass and come
To the battlement with me.
" That was a charmed wine thou drank'st,
Signed white from heaven, signed black
from hell.
Alas ! alas ! for the bitter thing
The sign hath forced thy lips to tell ! "
" Ho here ! Ho, there ! Lift up and bear
My choice wine out," she said ;
" That which hath brand of a clasping-
Land,
And the seal blood-red.
"Ho here! IIo there! To the castle stair
Hear all that branded wine ;
And das.li it far where the breakers are
Whitest, of the brine !
'• L;-t no man dare to shrink or spare,
Or one n-d drop to spill ;
Of the endless pain of that wine's hot stain
Let the salt sea bear its fill.
" 0 woe of mine ! O woe of thine !
O woe of endless thirst !
O woe for the Annv.-ta wine,
By fate and thee accurst ! '"
The knight spake words of sore dismay
But her face was white like stone ;
She saw him mount and ride away,
And made no moan.
The wind blew east, the wind blew west,
The airs from sepulchres ;
No royal heart in all of them
So dead as hers !
CORONATION.
AT the king's gate the subtle noon
Wove filmy yellow nets of sun ;
Into the drowsy snare too soon
The guards fell one by one.
Through the king's gate, unquestioned then,
A beggar went, and laughed, " This
brings
Me chance, at last, to see if men
Fare better, being kings."
The king sat bowed beneath his crown,
Propping his face with listless hand ;
Watching the hour-glass sifting down
Too slow its shining sand.
" Poor man, what .wouldst thou have of
me ? "
The beggar turned, and, pitying,
Replied, like one in a dream, "" Of thee,
Nothing. I want the king."
Uprose the king, and from his head
Shook off the crown and threw it by.
" 0 man, thou must have known," he said,
" A greater king than I!"
Through all the gates, unquestioned then,
Went king and beggar hand in hand.
Whispered the king, " Shall I know when
Before his throne I stand V "
The beggar laughed. Free winds in haste
^ Wen- wipinjr from the king's hot brow
The crimson lines the crown had traced.
" This is his presence now.''
At the king's gate, the crafty noon
Unwove its yellow nets of sun;
Out of their sleep in terror soon
The guards waked one by one.
" Ho here ! Ho there ! Has no man seen
The king'.'1" The cry ran to and fro;
Beggar and king, they 'laughed, I ween,
The laugh that free men know.
On the king's gate the moss grew gray ;
The king came not. They called him
dead ;
And made his eldest son one day
Slave in his father's stead.
TRYST.
SOMEWHERE thou awaitest.
And I, with lips unkissed,
Weep that thus to latest
Thou puttest off our tryst !
MRS. HELEN HUNT.
453
The golden bowls are broken,
The silver cords untwine ;
Almond flowers in token
Have bloomed, — that I am thine !
Others who would fly thee
In cowardly alarms,
Who hate thee and deny thee,
Thou foldest in thine arms !
How shall I entreat thee
No longer to withhold ?
I dare not go to meet thee,
0 lover, far and cold !
0 lover, whose lips chilling
So many lips have kissed,
Come, even if unwilling,
And keep thy solemn tryst !
MY STRAWBERRY.
0 MARVEL, fruit of fruits, I pause
To reckon thee. I ask what cause
Set free so much of red from heats
At core of earth, and mixed such sweets
With sour and spice: what was that
strength
Which out of darkness, length by length,
Spun all thy shining thread of vine,
Netting the fields in bond as thine.
1 see thy tendrils drink by sips
From grass and clover's smiling lips ;
I heartily roots dig down for wells,
Tapping the meadow's hidden cells ;
Whole generations of green things,
Descended from long lines of springs,
I see make room for thee to bide
A quiet comrade by their side ;
I see the creeping peoples go
Mysterious journeys to and fro,
Treading to right and left of thee,
Doing thee homage wonderingiy.
I see the wild bees as they fare,
Thy cups of honey drink, but spare.
I mark thee bathe and bathe again
In sweet uncalendared spring rain.
1 watch how all May has of sun
Makes haste to have thy ripeness done,
While all her nights let dews escape
To set and cool thy perfect shape.
Ah, fruit of fruits, no more 1 pause
To dream and seek thy hidden laws !
1 stretch my hand and dare to taste,
In instant of delicious waste
On single feast, all things that went
To make the empire thou hast spent.
" DOWN TO SLEEP.1'
NOVEMBER woods are .bare and still;
November days are clear and bright ;
Each noon burns up the morning's chill ;
The morning's snow is gone by night ;
Each day my steps grow slow, gr,ow light,
As through the woods I reverent creep,
Watching all things lie " down to sleep."
I never knew before what beds,
Fragrant to smell, and soft to touch,
The forest sifts and shapes and spreads ;
I never knew before how much
Of human sound there is in such
Low tones as through the forest sweep
When all wild things lie " down to sleep."
Each day I find new coverlids
Tucked in, and more sweet eyes shut
tight ;
Sometimes the viewless mother bids
Her ferns kneel down full in my sight ;
I hear their chorus of " good night ; "
And half I smile, and half I weep,
Listening while they lie " down to sleep."
November woods are bare and still ;
November days are bright and good ;
Life's noon burns up life's morning chill ;
Life's night rests feet which long have
stood ;
Some warm soft bed, in field or wood,
The mother will not fail to keep,
Where we can " lay us down to sleep."
VINTAGE.
BEFORE the time of grapes,
While they altered in the sun,
And out of the time of grapes,
When vintage songs were done, —
From secret southern spot,
Whose warmth not a mortal knew ;
From shades which the sun forgot,
Or could not struggle through, —
Wine sweeter than first wine,
She gave him by drop, by drop ;
Wine stronger than seal could sign,
She poured out and did not stop.
Soul of my soul, the shapes
Of the things of earth are one ;
Eemembeiest thou the grapes
I brought thee in the sun ?
And darest thou still drink
Wine stronger than seal can sign ?
And smilest thou to think
Eternal vintage thine ?
THOUGHT.
0 MESSENGER, art thou the king, or I ?
Thou dalliest out>ide the palace gate
Till on thine idle armor lie the late
And heavy dews : the morn's bright, r corn-
fill eye .
Reminds thee ; then, in subtle mockery,
Tliou smilest at the window where I wiit,
Who bade the ride for life. In empty state
My days go on, while false hours prophe.-y
Thy quick return ; at last, in sad despair,
1 cease to bid thee, leave thee free as air ;
When lo, thou stand'st before me glad a.ul
fleet,
And lay'st undreamed of treasures at m\- feet.
Ah! messenger, thy royal bloo 1 to buy,
I am too poor. Tliou art the king, not I.
MRS. MARGARET J. PRESTOS.
SEBASTIANO AT KUPPER.*
HA ! ha ! How free and happy I am,
Here in my rollicking, careless culm,
With never a scowling monk to gibe,
Or hurry me for the crab-like way'
They tell me I work. That beggarly tribe,
Priors ami abbesses, deem that a day
Must count in the life of a picture. Fools !
They think that they grow like mushroom
stools.
— " Ik-re's so many feet of bare, blank wall —
Here's so many days to fresco all."
Bah! Through the Father's grace, that's
past,
And I'm free — do you hear, friends ? — free
at last,
With only the Seals upon my mind ;
As idle a Frate as you'll find
In Rome or out of it. Here are we,
Gandolfo and Messer Marco— three
Right merry old roysterers, faith, we be ;
The night is before us; with many a choras,
We'll set the rafters a-ringing ()vi- us ;
For I vow I never could tell which art—
The brush or the bow, mo.-t s waved my
heart.
— Yes, yes — his worship Ippolito
Once served me a sorry trick, 1 k;iow —
The time he sent — (he was love a-cr-izo,
And wanted the work quick done)— vhiys
Of horses for speed, when I went to paint'
The Donna (Juelma : *!,<> was the sa'.nt
His prayers were said to, in these old days !
Well— would you believe it V Nathless, "'tis
true ;
I left my pigments behind and brought
My viol, as uppermost in my thought:
— And what did his Cardinal graceship do?
He smashed and he crashed the strings right
through.
And so, thereafter, I could not shirk,
For music, a single day of work.
Aye, aye — be sure 'twas a brutal shame,
But it helped in a month to build mv fame,
For 1 need not tell you the picture's name.
Heigho ! with a sweet relief I sigh,
Aa I loungr so masterless here— you by,
Dearest of comrades— sigh to think "
How .Michelagnolo pinned me down,
Granting me scarcely leave to wink,
Micir.el Amrelo's most f.,,,,ous pupil w-is Sebastisino del
I, ombo-so tailed from his liein- ma.le Keeper ,,f the I'apal
Se-.l,, through which appointment he was enabled to live
Without work. But tor Ins excessive indolence and sell-m-
dulxeuce, he might have disputed the palm with auv ,,i bis
cotemp.THries. All Art -pilgrims will remember his 'master
piece in tue I'hurch of San (iian Gri.sostomo, Venice
Impaled all day on his frescoes brown
(Lout that I was to fear his frown !)
No toil can tire him out : he'll be
Still fresh — you mark me — at ninety-three,
With muscles like his own David's. Well
It was that we quarreled ; for who can tell,
If under his grand, resistless will,
I might not have been a captive still ?
I think the Maestro hates me though :
My debtor I made him long ago,
And it rankles his terrible pride. You see
I went to Ischia once to paint
The lovely Marchesa ; (What a saint
Of a wife Colonna had ! — and he —
But we'll tell no tales ; it's all forgiven,
Now that he's been so long in heaven ;)
And the picture I gave the master, who
Had learned to worship that face, as you
Worship Our Lady's ; nor would I touch
In b-)ot a l>i-t, ••""', ; : 'tis so much
To Ir-ive him beholden ! And that is how
The liking of yore is hatred now.
Ah, we'! -i-day ! I have loved my art,
Beautiful mistress she ever was!
An 1 yet \\v are not unloth to part,
Though bound together for years — because
I inw ud'y groan to come and go,
At beck of the best ; and I leave her so.
Besides, I own, of the perilous stuff
The world calls fame I have had enough.
To (Jiulio, Perino, and such, 'tis best
I think, on the whole, to leave the rest.
- I'm garrulous : why have you let me waste
My breath a-chattering ? Only taste
This vintage, and own it might cheat the
Fates,
And see you, my friends, the supper waits
ANDREA'S MISTAKE."
1512.
Why, where have
"NOT heard the tale?
you been hidden
These seven days gone ? All Florence rings
it round ;
And you may see, along the Via Larga,
Madonna Maddalena and the rest —
The fair court- ladies, who were wont to count
* The marriage of Amlrea del Sarto (the old Florentine
muster, whose pictures take rank, perhaps, next to Raphael's)
With i widow of the lower (.lass, a beautiful yet worthless
woman, .<rave jrreat disgust to his friends, and threatened
seriously to arrest his course as an artist.
MRS. MARGARET J. PRESTON.
461
It honor if allowed to stand and watch
Over his shoulder as our Andrea worked, —
May see these very same avert the face
And draw the robe aside when Andrea
passes,
As if from the contaminate touch of plague.
"What hath he done?" Ay, verily, done
enough
To topple him down from his high dignity
Among the Masters. Take your stroll to
night
Through Di San Gallo.and there ask the first
Bold wanton that you chance to meet,
" What news?"
And I will wager you ten oboli
You'll have the story, all the marrow in it,
iS'eat as a nut — with yet the shell of truth.
"^Rather from me? " Good ! you shall hear
it now.
Let's turn aside, and by the fountain-brink
In cool San Marco's gardens, talk of it.
"A woman ? " Certes ! Did you ever find
Mischief a-brewing, nor aforehand know
A woman's meddling finger there V Per
Bacco !
To think how fortune, honor, reverence, all
Waited his plucking — just as quick to drop
At his mere touch as yonder fig has tumbled
Ere the wind's coming ; then to see him leave
The vintage of his yet ungathered life,
To rake a vile squeez'd orange fiom the muck
Because the rind was bright ! Why just
consider
How royal Francis lures him to his court,
Till the Venetian Masters grind their teeth,
And Veronese grows green ; and how the
duke
Counts Villa Campi richer for the forms
Our Andrea leaves there, than if Flemish
arras,
Copied from Albrecht's* rarest of cartoons,
Hung every wall. And jealous Florence
too—
A right harsh mother to her children oft —
Why, Florence flings her roses at his feet,
And sets him with her nobles, and throws
wide;
To him her proudest doors. And he — poor
fool !—
For sake of lips that take a brighter red,
Or cheek whore oval chances perfecter,
Haply, than any to his insatiate eye,
Makes haste to scramble from his hard- won
seat
(Dropping his brushes in the sewer), to run
And snatch this woman of the people up,
And take her — mind you !— as his wedded
wile.
"Commend his courage?" Hear you first
the story,
Nor, when I tell it you, as here we sit,
Will you once marvel that I sigh so, seeing
I hold our Andrea's life as lost to Art,
* Albrecht Dlirer.
"1 overstate tlie case? " Have you not marked
How a base woman, armed with leopard
strength
To match her leopard charms, can downward
drag
The man who loves her with the strangling
gripe
Of claws about his throat, and hold him EO,
Till all his rigid energies relax,
And the fine fibres of his nobler will
Beneath the brutish clutch part strand by
strand ?
"He lift her up ? " Alack ! who ever raw
The diamond, dropt within the festering
heap
Aglow with poison -flowers, prevail to make
The mud illuminate ? or beheld it even
Dredged up, belike, from the pestiferous
slime,
Again to flash on a pure forehead ? Art —
This priesthood of all beauteousness — is
weak
Against temptation, and it offers oft
Sweet incense to false gods, and kneels at
shrines
Where, in its solemn claim of Good and
True
And Beautiful, 'tis sacrilege to worship.
"Faith in our Andrea's genius" — which you
say
Is not a diamond to be lost i' the mire,
But a most lambent star that in the orbit
Of its own splendor shall go circling on,
To far-off ages visible ? Well, they'll see !
"Pity him?" Yea, I'm moved to think on
him ;
And so to Santa Trinita I'll go
To-morrow with gifts to please Our Lady :
she,
Mayhap, may grant some respite of the
" thrall,
Seeing through this Maestro's skill divine
Mortals are won to purer love of her,
By reason of his semblances. But yonder
Jacopo beckons, and my tale's not told.
DONNA MARGHERITA.*
(AN ART-PICTURE.)
HERE is the chamber: Messers, enter ye :
A Borgherini needs must courtesy yield
To whoso comes. Ye see upon the walls
My priceless pictures, .famed all Florence
through —
Jacopo's work. Behold the Patriarch's sons,
Cruel, unpitying, grouped about the boy,
Whom, for a fardel of rough Midiau gold,
Thev barter, mindless of his frantic prayers.
* Dnrinj; one of tlie sieves of Florence, the artist Palla, with
the connivance of the venal SfcflOl /. sei/ert, u J~ f
purch use for the King of France, iniinhers of t
of the city,— thus enriching liiniself throng
ruin. The Donna M«rgh0ritn HorjHierini,,
masterpiece ofjucopo Puntormo— 1 to Ht*t
hnu-ed the power of the State, and refused
pictures.
ler pretence of
e art-treasures
his rMimtry's
ho owned the
give up her
462
MRS. MARGARET J. PRESTOX.
Ha ! Palla, — stand where thou canst note
the chaffer, —
Yea, — so ! — And now I say, this Simeon,
•Who clutches from the 'Arab's sleeve the
prict
0 Vr which they higgle, is as a puling milk
sop
To that thou art ! lie bartered only blood ;
Thou,— honor, faith, and Florence ! And
because
She lies, our Florence, weeping at the feet
Of her invaders, in her broideries wrapped,
(An Empress still, wanting, albeit, a crust, — )
Thy thief's hand twitches off thy Mother's
robe,
Leaving her in her nnded majesty
To perish. Out upon thy villainy !
1 would this golden bodkin Avere a lance,
For other impalement than a woman's hair :
But being a woman, shorn of all defence,
Saving my shuddering hate, I dare defy
Thee and thy myrmidons, though ye be
armed
With license from the huckstering Signori ; —
Ye loosen no pictures from these walls, ex
cept
Ye loosen them with my life !
— Why, cravens, yonder
Stands in that carven niche my bridal couch ;
And when I use from my Francesco's face
To turn, 1 ever met the moistened lift
Of Jacob's lids, — 'see !) as with lips a-strain,
lie quaffs the maiden's foamy loveliness :
The earliest sight that filled the baby eyes
Of my youno- Florentine, was yon Hebrew
lad
Weeping before his brothers' knees. Why I
Were lacking in such mere brute instincts
even
As teach the leaguered lioness to fight
For shielding of her cubs and lair, — if less
I dare for these. \Yith the white heats of
scorn
I'll shrivel your purpose, till ye shun to see,
Each gazing on each, how dastards haste to
crawl
Out of the glare.
. . . Yet Palla hath loved Art ;
And he hath painted Mary-Mother's face
Divinely, as between heaven's rosy clouds
Herself had stooped to grant him seraph-
glimpse,
Else iinconceived —
Palla, some wine? — Meseems
Thy brow grows ashen: — J\'<v ? — Then sit
apart
ruder the arch here, where thou best canst
mark
Reuben the coward, who slinks away afeard
To brave the wrath of Judah and the rest.
- — What ! tire ye of the masterpiece so soon
That ye turn backs on't'.' Ay, 'tis well ve
put
Your tools np ; they'll unfasten no frames
to-day
From Casa Borgherini's walls, I promise:
And to the ^'iytwri (brave, worshipful!)
Bear, with my duty, back the Iscariot bribe,
Owning that Donna Margherita haggled
Over the price, — seeing she holds the pic
tures
At cost of her heart's blood.
DOROTHEA'S ROSES.
(IN FLORENCE.)
YES, — here is the old cathedral ;
Out of the glare and heat,
We'll plunge in these depths of coolness,
( — Take the prie-dieu for a seat :)
Bathe in this gloom your vision,
So wearied with frescoed shows,
And let the slow ripples of silence,
Tide-like, around you close.
Then at your ease, I'll show you
That picture of Carlo's,*— the sight
Of whose so ineffable sweetness
Prismed my dreams last night.
Surely you've heard the legend,
(Saint Cyprian hands it down,)
Of the beautiful Dorothea
Who was crowned with the fiery crown ?
No ? — Then sit as you're sitting
There, in that open stall,
Just where the great rose-window
Splendors the eastern wall, —
Just where the sunset shivers
Its darts on the altar-rail,
And while the blue smoke of the incense
Rises, I'll tell the tale.
— There dwelt (while the old religion
For the golden East sufficed,
While the Grecian Zeus was worshipped
In the temples, instead of Christ —
When flame and rack and dungeon
Awaited the neophyte
Who turned from an idol's statue,
Or shrank from a pagan rite) —
In a fair Greek city, a maiden,
Whose fame went all abroad
Because of her wondrous beauty,
And they called her Tin' yift "f God.
One day, as she passed, bestowing
Offerings at Hebe's shrine,
Strange words to her ear were wafted — •
New teachings that seemed divine.
She paused, and the hoary hermit
Placed in her hands a scroll,
— Saint John-the-Divine's sweet Gospel —
And she read — and believed the whole.
Thereat, the fierce proconsul
Rose in his wrath : — " Deny
This myth of the Galilean,
Or thou, by the gods, shalt die ! "
Carlo Duke's St. Dorothea.
MRS. MARGARET J. PRESTON.
433
Meekly she bowed before him,
With a faith 110 threat could dim ;
« He hath died for me, and I cannot,
I cannot do less for Him ! "
As out through the gates of the city,
They led her to meet her death,
From the midst of his gay companions,
Hilarion mocking saith —
« Ha ! — goest thou, lovely maiden,
(Such joy on thy face I see,)
Afar to some fair Elysium,
Where thy bridegroom waits for thee ?
" If there an Hesperides garden
Blooms, that is brighter than ours,
Send me, beseech thee, in token,
A spray of celestial flowers ! "
She smiled with a smile seraphic ;
'< Is that of thy faith the price ?
Then, verily, thou shalt have roses
Gathered in Paradise."
Onward she went exulting,
As though she were borne mid air ;
And lo ! as she neared the pyre,
A fair-haired boy stood there, —
'in his hand, three dewy roses,
Clustered about their stem :
— "Ah, hasten,"— she said,— " sweet an
gel !
Hilarion waits for them ! "
— Come now, and see Carlo's picture
Of the maiden, as she stands
With the golden nimbus around her,
And the roses within her hands.
IN AN EASTERN BAZAAR.
I AM tired ! — Let us sit in the shadows
This mosque flings,— (how drowsy they
are!)
And watch, a« they come from the meadows,
Those carriers, each with his jar
And puff at a lazy cigar.
Confess now, 'tis something delicious —
To leave the old life a.ll behind,
Its turbulence, worries and wishes,
Its loves and its longings, and find
A Nirvana at last to your mind.
What softness suffuses the picture !
lio\v tranquil the poppied repose !
—See the child there, unbound by the
strict are
Of dress that encumbers : — he knows
(Acquit of the gyves we impose)
What the meaning of freedom is, better
Than any young Frank of them all,
Whose civilized feet we must fetter —
Whose fair Christian limbs we must gall
With garments that chafe and enthrall.
Just look at yon brown caryatid
Who poises the urn on her head ;
— Don't tell me her long locks are matted,
But mark the Greek Naiad instead,
— Such grace to such symmetry wed !
Quick ! — notice the droop of her shoulder,
And the exquisite curve of her arm ;
None ever will tell, or has told her
How perfect she is : — There's the charm !
Such knowledge brings nothing but harm.
Here's a group now ! The jealous Zenanas
Unveil in the twilight their bowers ;
And girls that look proud as Sultanas,
Bloom out as the night-blooming flowers,
That drowse with their odors the hours.
True wildlings of nature ! Each gesture
A study, by art undefiled :
They gather or loosen their vesture,
By no thought of observance beguiled,
Unconscious of aim as a child.
— The traffic too, — what now could ruffle
Yon white-turban'd merchant's repose,
As placidly scorning the scuffle
And chaffer, he waits ? — for he knows
Where the vantage will rest, at the close.
I miss (and how slumbrous the feeling !)
As I catch the low hum of these hives,
That Occident worry that's stealing
(Through schemes that our culture con
trives)
The calmness all out of our lives.
No exigence harries their pleasures ;
Unbeautiful haste does not fray
Their time of its margin of leisures ;
While ice, in our prodigal way,
Forestall our whole morrow, to-day.
Yes yes— I concede we're their betters,
(Self-gratulant Goth that I am !)
We have science, religion and letters,
With the bane of the curse, we've the
balm :
They keep their inviolate calm.
If only this land of the lotus
Would teach us the charm it knows best,
That could soothe the rasped nerve — that
could float us
Far off to some Island of Rest,
What a boon from the East to the West !
ST. GREGORY'S SUPPER.
" SERVANT of sfrrmtt* ! That is the name
Falleth the fittest when they call;
Jesus my Master bore the same,
Though He be Sovereign Lord of all.
Shut in' my crypt by night, by day,
Breathing Hie P<^<-e wi*h every breath,
I was content To wear away,
Tasting a calm as s\ve< t as death :
Yet they have bidden me forth to bear
Mitre and stole and sacred staff, —
Burdens that stoop my heart with care
Heart that is weak as winnowed cnatt.
404
MRS. MARGARET J. PRESTO X.
" Valens, abide with me, friend of friends,
Sluire, as we use, our joy— our woe ;
Order my household, — make amends
— Steading me thus — to poor and low,
Whom, in their hovels, I'll see no more :
Gather each night about my board
Twelve grav beggars to halve my store,
( — Am 1 not almoner for my Lord ? — )
Twelve of the outcasts. Even to such
Still I would Servant of servants be :
Small the abasement ! — think how much
(ireater the Master's was for me."
Forth to his work the Pontiff passed,
Wrapt in his prayerful thoughts apart,
Fearful some clouding pride should cast
Shadows of bale above his heart.
Valens made haste against he caine,
Summoned as guests the twelve he bade,
Hungry and homeless, lost to shame,
Only in iilth and rags arrayed :
Just as They were, defiled, unsweet,
Grimed with the squalid crust of sin.
Pivs.-ing their hands, their host did greet
Each, as they wondering, entered in.
Lifting his voice, he prayed, —then brake
Generous bread for their full repast :
" Welcome,"— he said, — " for the Lord's
dear sake ;"
While o'er the group his eyes lie cast.
" As it is written, — He sat at meat
Tli us iritli the Twelve ; — Ha, what may it
mean ?
Valens, 1 bade that but twelve should eat,
Yet there be verily here thirteen !"
Valens made answer : — " Even so,
Heeded I, hearkening to thy hest :
One hath intruded, nor do I know
Wherefore he titteth among the rest."
" Whence art thou come, unbidden ? —
Speak ! "
Straightway the stranger gave reply :
— ' ' Once did a starving palmer seek
Alms of thee, passing thy cloister by.
' Nothing' — thou saidst — ' is mine to give,
Saving this silvern bowl, — to me,
Gift of ruy mother ; yet take and live : '
— Know'st thou the palmer? — lam he!"
E'en as he spake, his face waxed faint,
Brightened, then paled in a splendor dim,
Leaving them ma/ed, — and then the Saint
Knew it was Christ who had supped with
him !
THE OPEN GATE.
PAST and over ;— Yet no frenzy
Marks my overladen brain ;
Grief can anodyne the spirit,
Wo:- can numb its pain.
Did you deem the blow would crush me,
Pitying comforters, — that I
In despairing acquiescence
Could but moan and die ?
N:iy,— one deadening shock hath palsied
So my sentient nature o'er,
Well I knew no after sorrow
Now could craze me more.
Yet I grasped without abatement
Its full meaning when ye said,
Softly, lest the sound should stun me,
That the child was dead.
Keep that bitterer word, — it gauges
Something of that other woe,
Different as the soundless ocean's
From the shallows' flow.
Oh, not dead : — that word has in it
Maddening terrors, wild alarms :
— Rather, God has given the darling
To his father's arms !
Months — or is it years ? — have vanished
Since for him the boy has smiled,
And if saints can long in heaven,
He must want the child.
... I have seen the gates unfolding,
(Heavenly hath the vision been,)
—Seen the little stranger venture
Through the radiance in :
Watched the timid, shrinking wonder
On the baby- face so fair,
And the kindling smile of rapture,
When he found him there :
Watched the soul-full recognition ;
Saw the finger pointing back
To the arms he knew were stretching
Toward that shining track :
Till I wondered at my sorrow, —
But the vision would not stay ;
And it left the truth unsofteiied,
— He is taken away.
— What is left me ? Only patience,
Only heart to watch and wait,
Till that moment when as convoys
From the open gate,
Forth shall issue child and father,
Bend above me, — name my name, —
Sent upon a tenderer errand
Than they ever came :
If to nurse the thought can lighten
Even now the crush of woe,
Surely, surely 'twill be blissful
To arise and go !
GOD'S PATIENCE.
OF all the attributes whose starry rays
Converge and centre in one focal light
Of luminous glory such as angels' sight
Can only look on with a blench'd amaze,
None crowns the brow of God with purer
blaze,
Nor lifts His grandeur to more infinite
height
Than His exhaustless patience. Let us praise
With wondering hearts this strangest, ten-
derest grace,
Remembering awe-struck, that the aveng
ing rod
Of Justice must have fallen, and Mercy's plan
Been frustrate, had not Patience stood be
tween,
Divinely meek. And let us learn that man,
Toiling, enduring, pleading — calm, serene,
For those who scorn and slight, is likest God.
:NTOKA PERRY.
IN JUNE.
So sweet, so sweet the roses in their blow
ing,
So sweet the daffodils, so fair to see ;
So blithe and g-ay the humming-bird a-going
From flower to flower, a-hunting with the
bee.
So sweet, so sweet the calling of the thrushes,
The calling, cooing, wooing, everywhere ;
So sweet the water's song through reeds
and rushes,
The plover's piping note, now here, now
there.
So sweet, so sweet, from off the fields of
clover,
The west wind blowing, blowing up the
hill ;
So sweet, so sweet, with news of some one's
lover,
Fleet footsteps ringing nearer, nearer
still.
So near, so near, now listen, listen thrushes;
Now plover, blackbird, cease, and let me
hear ;
And water, hush your song through reeds
and rushes,
That I may know whose lover cometh
near.
So loud, so loud, the thrushes kept their
calling,
Plover or blackbird never heeding me ;
So loud the mill-stream too kept fretting,
falling,
O'er bar and bank, in brawling, boisterous
glee.
So loud, so loud ; yet blackbird, thrush nor
plover,
Nor noisy mill-stream, in its fret and fall,
Could drown the voice, the low voice of my
lover,
My lover calling through the thrushes'
call.
" Come down, come down ! " he called, and
straight the thrushes
From mate to mate sang all at once,
" Come down ! "
And while the water laughed through reeds
and rushes,
The blackbird chirped, the plover piped,
" Come down !"
Then down and off, and through the fields
of clover,
I followed, followed at my lover's call ;
Listening no more to blackbird, thrush, or
plover,
The water's laugh, the mill-stream's fret
and fall.
THAT WALTZ OF VON WEBER'S.
GAYLY and gayly rang the gay music,
The blithe, merry music of harp and of
horn,
The mad, merry music, that set us a-dancing
Till over the midnight came stealing the
morn.
Down the great hall went waving the
banners,
Waving and waving their red, white and
blue,
As the sweet summer wind came blowing
and blowing
From the city's great gardens asleep in the
dew.
Under the flags, as they floated and floated,
Under the arches and arches of flowers,
We two and we two floated and floated
Into the mystical midnight hours.
And just as the dawn came stealing and
stealing,
The last of those wild Weber waltzes
began ;
I can hear the soft notes now appealing and
pleading,
And I catch the faint scent of the sandal-
wood fan
That lay in your hand, your hand on my
shoulder,
As down the great hall, away and away,
All under the flags and under the arc-lies,
We danced and we danced till the dawn of
the day.
But why should I dream o'er this dreary old
ledger,
In this counting-room down in this dingy
old street,
Of that night or that morning, just there at
the dawning,
When our hearts beat in time to our fast-
flying feet ?
What is it that brings me that scent of
enchantment,
So fragrant and fresh from out the dead
years,
403
NORA PERRY.
That just for a moment I'd swear that the
music
Of Weber's wild waltzes was still in my
ears ?
What is it, indeed, in this dusty old alley,
That brings me that night or that morning
in June ?
What is it, indeed?— I laugh to confess it —
A hand organ grinding a creaking old tune !
But somewhere or other I caught in the
measure
That waltz of Von Weber's, and back it all
came,
That night or that morning, just there at
the dawning,
When I danced the last dance with my first
and last flame.
My first and my last! but who would believe
me
If, down in this dusty old alley to-day,
'Twixt the talk about cotton, the markets,
and money,
I should suddenly turn in some moment
and say
That one memory only had left me a lonely
And gray -bearded bachelor, dreaming of
Junes,
Where the nights and the mornings, from
the dusk to the dawnings,
Seemed set to the music of Weber's wild
tunes !
RIDING DOWN.
OH did you see him riding down,
And riding down, while all the town
Came out to see, came out to see,
And all the bells rang mad with glee?
Oh did you hear those bells ring out,
The bells ring out, the people shout,
And did you hear that cheer on cheer,
That over all the bells rang clear ?
And did you see the waving flags,
The fluttering flags, and tattered flags,
Red, white and blue, shot through and
through,
Baptized with battle's deadly dew ?
And did you hear the drums' gay beat,
The drums' gay beat, the bugles sweet,
The cymbals' clash, the cannons' crash
That rent the sky with sound and flash?
And did you see me waiting there,
Just waiting there, and watching there,
One little lass amid the mass
That pressed to see the hero pass ?
And did you see him smiling down,
And smiling down, as riding down,
With slowest pace, with stately grace,
lie caught the vision of a face.
My face uplifted, red and white,
Turned red and white with sheer delight,
To meet the eyes, the smiling eyes,
Out flashing in their swift surprise.
Oh did you see how swift it came,
How swift it come like sudden flame,
That smile to me, to only me,
The little lass who blushed to see?
And at the windows all along,
Oh, all along, a lovely throng
Of faces fair, beyond compare,
Beamed out upon him riding there.
Each face was like a radiant gem,
A sparkling gem, and yet for them
No swift smile came, like sudden flame,
No arrowy glance took certain aim.
He turned away from all their grace,
From all that grace of perfect face,
He turned to me, to only me,
The little lass who blushed to see !
MY LADY.
HERE she comes — my lady — so fair and so
fine
From the gold of her hair to the glitter and
shine
Of her Pompadour silk with its ruffles of
lace —
A wonderful vision of fashion and grace.
Here she comes — my lady — drawing on the
pink gloves
Which I know, even here, have the scent
that she loves ;
And soft, as she moves her fingers of snow,
I catch in the movement the sparkle and
glow
Of the ring that I gave her — the diamond
solitaire
That marks her " my lady," in Vanity Fair;
My lady — my jewel — to have and to hold
As her diamond is held— in a setting of y old.
My lady — my jewel — would she sparkle and
glow
If into the light I should suddenly go,
And stand where her beautiful eyes would
discover
In the flash of a moment, the eyes of her
lover ?
Would she turn to my glance as the diamond
turns
To the light all its rays, till it blushes and
burns ?
Should I, standing thus, in that moment —
her lover,
Be the light, all the light of her soul to
discover V
Ah, my lady — my jewel — so fair and so fine,
Of your soul 1 have had little token or sign;
When I put on your finger that diamond
solitaire,
/ knew I was buying in Vanity Fair !
NORA PERRY.
467
ANOTHER YEAR.
'•" ANOTHER year," she said, "another year.
These roses I have watched with so much
care,
Have watched and tended without pain or
fear,
Shall bud and bloom for me exceeding
fair —
Another year," she said, " another year."
" Another year," she said, "another year,
My life perhaps may bud and bloom again,
May bud and bloom like these red roses here,
Unlike them, tended with regret and
pain —
Another year, perhaps, another year.
" Another year, ah, yes, another year,
When bloom my roses, all my life shall
bloom ;
When summer comes, my summer too '11 be
here,
And I shall cease to wander in this gloom —
Another year, ah, yes, another year.
" For ah, another year, another year,
I'll i-et my life in richer, stronger soil,
And prune the weeds away that creep too
near,
And watch and tend with never-ceasing
toil —
Another year, ah, yes, another year."
Another year, alas ! another year,
The roses all lay withering ere their prime,
Poor blighted buds, with scanty leaves and
sere,
Drooping and dying long before their
time —
Another year, alas ! another year.
And ah, another year, another year,
Low, like the blighted dying buds, she lay,
Whose voice had prophesied without a fear,
Whose hand had trimmed the rose-tree
day by day,
To bloom another year, another year.
AFTER THE BALL.
TIITCY sat and combed their beautiful hair,
Their long, bright tresses, one by one,
As they laughed and talked in the chamber
there,
After the revel was done.
Idly they talked of waltz and quadrille,
Idly they laughed, like other girls,
Who over the fire, when all is still,
Comb out their braids and curls.
Kobe of satin and Brussels lace,
Knots of flowers and ribbons, too,
Scattered about in every place,
For the revel is through.
And Maud and Madge in robes of white,
The pivttiest night-gowns under the sun,
Btockingless, slipperless, sit in the night,
For the revel is done, —
Sit and comb their beautiful hair,
Those wonderful waves of brown and
gold,
Till the fire is out in the chamber there,
And the little bare feet are cold.
Then out of the gathering winter chill,
All out of the bitter St. Agnes weather,
While the fire is out and the house is still,
Maud and Madge together, —
Maud and Madge in robes of white,
The prettiest night-gowns under the sun,
Curtained away from the chilly night,
After the revel is done, —
Float along in a splendid dream,
To a golden gittern's tinkling tune,
While a thousand lustres shimmering stream
In a palace's grand saloon.
Flashing of jewels and flutter of laces,
Tropical odors sweeter than musk,
Men and women with beautiful faces,
And eyes of tropical dusk,—
And one face shining out like a star,
One face haunting the dreams of each,
And one voice, sweeter than others are,
Breaking into silvery speech, —
Telling, through lips of bearded bloom,
An old, old story over again,
As down the royal bannered room,
To the golden gittern's strain,
Two and two, they dreamily walk,
While an unseen spirit walks beside,
And all unheard in the lovers' talk,
He claimeth one for a bride.
0, Maud and Madge, dream on together,
With never a pang of jealous fear!
For, ere the bitter St. Agnes weather
Shall whiten another year,
Robed for the bridal, and robed for the tomb,
Braided brown hair and golden tress,
There'll be only one of you left for the bloom
Of the bearded lips to press, —
Only one for the bridal pearls,
The robe of satin and Brussels lace, —
Only one to blush through her curls
At the sight of a lover's face.
O beautiful Madge, in your bridal white,
For you the revel has just begun ;
But for her who sleeps in your arms to-night
The revel of Life is done !
But robed and crowned with your saintly
bliss,
Queen of heaven and bride of the sun,
0 beautiful Maud, you'll never miss
The kisses another hath won !
LAUEA 0. REDDER.
DISARMED.
0 LOVE ! so sweet at first !
So bitter in the end !
1 name thee fiercest foe,
As well as falsest friend.
What shall I do with these
Poor withered flowers of May-
Thy tenderest promises —
All worthless in a day ?
How art thou swift to slay,
Despite thy clinging clasp,
Thy long- caressing look,
Thy subtle, thrilling- grasp !
Ay, swifter far to slay
Than thou art strong to save ;
Thou renderest but a blow
For all 1 ever gave. ,
Oh, grasping as the grave !
Go, go ! and come no more —
But canst thou set my heart
Just where it was before ?
Too selfish in thy need !
Go, leave me to my tears,
The only gifts of thine
That shall outlast the years.
Yet shall outlast the years
One other cherished thing,
Slight as the vagrant plume
Shed from some passing wing
The memory of thy first
Divine, half-timid kiss.
Go ! I forgive thee all
In weeping over this !
BROKEN OFF.
MEX said unto a prince of story-tellers,
" Tell us another tale ! ''
And yet, beside the bells, stood phantom
knellers,
And his voice was fit to fail.
At first he faltered, saying, " I am weary,
And the words are slow to come.
Across my kin flit visions dim and eerie,
And 'tis sweet to keep at home ! "
But the clamor rose, by many voices strength
ened ;
And one voice in his heart
GrewT louder as the spring-tide shadows
lengthened :
" All ! 'tis dull to sit apart !
"Be prouder than to wait with fingers
folded,
Scared, looking out for death ;
Drop not the habit which thy life hath
moulded
But with thy lease of breath ! "
He passed his hand across his heavy fore
head,
And then across his eyes ;
Before him rose a spectre, dim and horrid,
With terrible replies :
" The name by which men name me, while
they shiver,
It is Swiftly .Certain Death :
Leave all the latest arrows in their quiver,
Or 'gage to me thy breath ! "
Ah me ! this prince of worthy story-tellers
Stood sad beneath the sun ;
For he could see where stood the phantom
knellers —
But the story was begun !
Some said : " It is his story of all stories ; "
And others : " Lo ! he fails !
His later can not match his earlier glories —
He falters and he pales ! "
But men pressed round him, eagerly, to
listen ;
And all else was forgot.
He coaxed the smile to shine, the tear to
glisten ;
And then — his voice was not !
The tale was but begun — the web half
woven —
The colors scarcely mixed —
The cunning of his hand was not yet
proven —
His intent hardly fixed.
For the dark comrade who walked with his
walking
Laid lightly on his lip
A cold forefinger — and he ceased from talk
ing —
Suddenly — without slip.
Ah ! still lips locked on the mysterious
story !
Ah ! hand that can not hold
The pen by which he earned his meed of
glory —
He's dead ! and 'tis not told 1
LAURA C. REDDEN.
WORN OUT.
You say that the sun is shining,
That buds are upon the trees,
That you hear the laugh of the waters,
The humming of early bees :
I am pleasured by none of these —
I am weary !
Let me alone ! The silence
Is sweeter than song to me !
Dearer than Light is Darkness
To the eyes that loathe to see !
'Tis better to let me be —
I am weary !
I have faltered and fallen —
The race was but begun ;
I am ashamed, and I murmur,
" Oh ! that the day were done ! "
How can I love the sun,
Who am weary ?
What will you do for the flower
That is cut away at the root ?
If the wing of the bird be broken,
What wonder the bird is mute ?
Oh, peace ! and no more dispute —
I am weary !
I will give you a token —
A token by which to know
When I have forgotten the trouble —
The trouble that tires me so
That I can no further go,
Being weary.
When you shall come some morning
And stand beside my bed,
And see the wonderful pallor
That over my face is spread,
Shrink not. But remember I said
I was weary.
Then shall you search my features,
But a trace you shall not see
Of all these months of sadness
That have put their mark on me ;
Then know that I am free,
Who was weary.
For the Old must fall and crumble
Before we can try the New ;
We must taste that the False is bitter
Before we can crave the True.
This done, there's no more to do,
Being weary,
Only to droop the eyelids,
Only to bow the head,
And to pass from those who are singing,
" Alas ! for our friend is dead ! "
But remember how I said,
" I am weary ! "
A LOVE-SONG OF SORRENTO.
COME away to the shade of the citron grove,
Carina !
To hear the voice of the brooding dove,
Carina !
Her soft throat swells as she tells her love
To her tender mate in the myrtle above,
And her tremulous pinions responsive move,
Cara ! Carina !
Ah ! love is sweet as the spring is sweet,
Carina !
For me thou makest the spring complete,
Carina !
The young wind bloweth unto thy feet
A drift of flowers thy steps to meet,
And the wounded blossoms perfume the
heat,
Cara ! Carina !
They are tokens for only a bride to wear,
Carina !
Yet I would crown thee if I might dare,
Carina !
Ah ! shy and sweet and tender and rare,
Put away from thine eyes thy shining
hair
Nay, now, have I startled thee, unaware ?
Cara ! Carina !
My heart is lying across thy way,
Carina !
As thou crushest the flowers, wilt thou crush
it— say,
Carina ?
Or, sadder yet, wilt thou let it stay
Where it is lying, well away,
All on this pleasant morning in May ?
Cara ! Carina !
My beautiful flower of flowers ! No,
Carina !
Thou wilt not scorn it nor crush it so,
Carina !
One true little word before we go ;
Close — nestle close — and whisper low —
Low while the faint south breezes blow,
Cara! Carina!
Thou'lt wear nothing but white when we
are wed,
Carina !
Thou'lt have orange blossoms about thy
head,
Carina !
The maidens shall string them on silver
thread ;
On a rose-leaf carpet thou shalt tread,
While the bride -blush maketh thy beauty
red,
Cara ! Carina !
AN EMPTY NEST.
MINE is the soug of an empty nest :
Others will bring you braver songs ;
But mine must utter my heart's behest
Though I sing it to heedless throngs.
My steps were over the blanched leaves
That had taken the frost's untimely kiss
Not long ago we had carried the sheaves,
But the season was all amiss.
With hanging head and loitering feet
Toward the open land I went,
470
LAURA C. REDDEN.
Through places that summer had made so
sweet
With a glamour but briefly lent.
I trod upon something soft and dry,
For my eyes were full on the flaming
we.st ;
And just where the grass was thick and
high
Was lying — an empty nest.
Oh, what visions of faded spring ;
Oh, what memories of silenced song,
Of brooding breast, and of glancing wing,
To an empty nest belong' !
And the thought that suddenly came to me,
Close to the water, facing the west,
Was of some singing that used to be
In another forsaken nest.
There were two birds that began to sing
Low in the fields of yellow corn —
Not for the heed their song should bring,
But for love of the dewy morn.
Birds of one feather and sister birds,
Crowded out of a roof-tree nest,
Hatched within sound of lowing herds,
But flying away from the west.
Birds of one feather fare best together :
Singing, they built them another nest,
Sat in it and sung in the worst of we&ther,
Each loving the other best.
But we who listened one morning knew
That only one bird was left to sing :
They never had sung apart, the two,
And we talked of a broken wing.
Now, should you chance to pass that way,
You would vainly listen for any song ;
But what regrets for the vanished lay
To this empty nest belong !
THE FIELDS ARE GRAY WITH IMMORTELLES.
TIIK slice]) are sheltered in the fold,
The mists are marshalled on the hill,
The squirrel watches from his lair,
And every living thing is still :
The fields are gray with Immortelles !
The river, like a sluggish snake,
Creeps o'er the brown and bristly plain
I hear the swinging of the pines
Betwixt the pauses of the rain
Down-dripping on the Immortelles !
And think of faces, slimy cold,
That flinch not under falling 1ears ;
Meek-mouthed and heavy-lidded, and
With sleek hair put behind the ears,
And crowned with scentless Immortelles !
The partridge hath forgot her nest
Among the M ubhle by the rill ;
In vain the lances of the frost
Seek for some tender things to kill :
They can not hurt the Immortelles !
Sad empress of the stony fell !
Gray stoic of the blasted heath !
Dullest of flowers that ever bloomed.
And yet triumphant over death,
0, weird and winged Immortelle !
Lie lightly upon Nature's breast,
And cover up her altered face,
Lest we should shiver when we see
The brightness of its vernal grace
Grown grayer than the Immortelles !
The wind cries in the reedy-marsh,
And wanders, sobbing, through the dell ;
Poor, broken-hearted lover, he
For violets finds the Immortelle !
The Immortelle ! The Immortelle
ENTRE NOUS.
As we two slowly walked that night,
Silence fell on us — as of fear ;
I was afraid to face the light,
Lest you should see that I loved you, dear.
You drew my arm against your heart,
So close I could feel it beating near ;
You were brave enough for a lover's part —
You were so sure that I loved you, dear.
Then you murmured a word or two,
And tenderly stooped your listening ear ;
For you thought that all that you had to do
Was to hear me say that I loved you,
dear.
But, though your face was so close to mine
That you touched my cheek with your
chestnut hair,
I wouldn't my lips to yours resign :
And yet — I loved you — I loved you, dear.
And all at once you were cold and pale,
Because you thought that I did not care ;
I cried a little behind my veil —
But that was because I loved you, dear.
And so you thought 'twas a drop of rain
That splashed your hand? But 'twas a
tear ;
For then you said you'd never again
Ask me to say that I loved you, dear.
Well ! I will tell— if you'll listen now :
I thought of the words you said hist year ;
How we girls weren't coy enough, and' how
There were half a dozen that loved you,
dear.
And I was afraid that you held me light,
And an imp at my shoulder said, " Beware !
He's just in a wooing mood to-night."
So I wouldn't say that I loved you, dear.
Not though I thought you the Man of men,
Chiefest of heroes, brave and rare ;
Not though I never shall love again
Any man as I loved you, dear.
I have suffered, and so have you ;
And to-night, if you were but standing
here,
I'd make you an answer straight and true,
If you'd ask again if I loved you, dear.
HAKRIET MoEWEN KIMBALL.
YIA DOLOROSA.
In the world ye shall have tribulation."— Si. JOHJ
MY Saviour said : " Take up thy cross
And follow me where I may lead ;
Count every earthly treasure dross,
And, losing, find thy life indeed."
I raised my burden ; it was light :
Alas ! how heavy it has grown !
0 toilsome way ! O cruel height !
Lord, can I bear my cross alone ?
My foes, unnumbered and unseen,
Press madly round me day and night ;
1 have no friend on whom to lean ;
I sink in sorrow and affright !
0 blessed Voice ! . . . I hear Him say :
" Lo, 1 am with thee till the end ;
Thy strength shall fail not through thy day,
And I am thy Eternal Friend."
The burdens of the world He bore,
And shall I shrink from bearing mine ?
Alone He walked in anguish sore,
But me upholds with love divine.
His grace can smooth the roughest road ;
The way He hallowed I will take :
How heavy, yet how light the load
That I must bear for His dear sake !
Through tribulation though He lead,
He maketh self-denial sweet ;
My life I lose each day indeed
To find it at my Saviour's feet !
MY KNOWLEDGE.
Hid in Thy everlasting deeps,
The silent God His secret keeps.
The Way, the Truth, the Life Thou art !
This, this I know ; to this I cleave ;
The sweet new language of my heart—
" Lord, I believe : "
I have no doubt to bring to Thee ;
My doubt has fled, my faith is free !
PRAYING IN SPIRIT.
THOUGH men confront the living God
With wisdom than His Word more wise,
And leaving paths apostles trod,
Their own devise ;
I would myself forsake and flee,
0 Christ, the living Way, to Thee !
1 know not what the schools may teach,
Nor yet how far from truth depart ;
One lesson is within my reach —
The Truth Thou art :
And learning this, I learn each day
To cast all other lore away.
I cannot solve mysterious things,
That fill the schoolmen's thoughts with
stiife ;
But oh ! what peace this knowledge brings,
Thou art the Life ;
"But th<ni, when tliou prayest, enter into t
lliou hast shut thy dour, pray to thy Father w
ST. MATT. vi. 6.
I NEED not leave the jostling world,
Or wait till daily tasks are o'er,
To fold my palms in secret prayer
Within the close-shut closet door.
There is a viewless, cloistered room,
As high as heaven, as fair as day,
Where, though my feet may join the throng,
My soul can enter in and pray.
When I have banished wayward thoughts,
Of sinful works the fruitful seed,
When folly wins my ear no more,
The closet door is shut, indeed.
No human step approaching breaks
The blissful silence of the place ;
No shadow steals across the light
That falls from my Redeemer's face !
And never through those crystal walls
The clash of life can pierce its way,
Nor ever can a human ear
Drink in the spirit-words I say.
One hearkening, even, cannot know
When I have crossed the threshold o'er,
For He, alone, who hears my prayer
Has heard the shutting of the door!
HUMBLE SERVICE.
IT is an easy thing to say,
" Thou knowest that I love Thee, Lord ! "
And easy in the bitter fray
For His defence to draw the sword.
But when at His dear hands we seek
Some lofty tru>T for Him to keen,
To our ambition vain and weak
How strange His bidding, " Feed my
sheep."
" Too mean a task for love," we cry ;
Remembering not if, in our pride,
HARRIET Me E WEN KIMBALL.
We pass Ills humbler service by,
Our vows are by our deeds denied.
O Father! help us to resign
Our hearts, our strength, our wills to Thee;
Then even lowliest work of Thine
Most noble, blest, and sweet will be !
MY FRIEND.
not wrong thee, 0 To-day,
With idle longing for To-morrow ;
But patient plough my field, and sow
The seed of faith in every furrow.
Enough for me the loving light
That melts the cloud's repellent edges ;
The still unfolding, bud by bud,
Of God's most sweet and holy pledges.
I breathe His breath ; my life is His ;
The hand lie nerves knows no defraud
ing, —
The Lord will make this joyless waste
Wave with the wheat of His rewarding.
Of His rewarding ! Yes ; and yet
Not mine a single blade or kernel ;
The seed is His ; the quickening His ;
The care, unchanging and eternal.
His, too, the harvest song shall be,
When. He who blest the barren furrow
Shall thrust His shining sickle in,
And reap my little field To-morrow.
THE BELL IN THE TOWER.
the bell in the high church-tower,
Striking the hour ;
The hushed Night hearkens, like one who
stands
In sudden awe, with uplifted hands I
A Spirit up in the tower doth dwell,
And when the bell
Penis out the hours with a measured chime,
I hear him turning the sands of time !
He says : " Life dieth with every breath ! "
Whispers of Death:
" It is the fall of the flower of Earth ;
The promise-seed of immortal birth! "
He speaks to the striving world below :
" Why do ye so?
Will all the treasure that hand can hold
Buy sweeter sleep in the church-yard mould ?
"Behold one (Jod, over great and small,
.Tiidgelli ye all !
Ask Him for grace in the morning light,
And pray for pardon and peace at night ! "
O, while I listen my whole soul bows,
Paying her vo\vs ;
And folly tieeth with sinful fear,
As those clear bell-strokes fall on my ear !
For not more solemn the holy chimes,
In other times,
That helped the faithful to pray aright,
And put the spirits of air to flight!
And ever — ever would I be near,
Daily to hear —
Daily and nightly, in work or rest,
The Voice that pierces and soothes
breast !
ALL'S WELL.
my
THE day is ended. Ere I sink to sleep
My weary spirit seeks repose in Thine :
Father ! forgive my trespasses, and keep
This little life of mine.
With loving kindness curtain Thou my
bed ;
And cool in rest my burning pilgrim-feet ;
Thy pardon be the pillow for my head —
So shall my sleep be sweet.
At peace with all the world, dear Lord, and
Thee,
No fears my soul's unwavering faith can
shake ;
All's well ! whichever side the grave for
me
The morning light may break !
THE GUEST.
"BehnH.Istand at the door, and knock : if any man hear my
vnic*-, tind u]>en thfi door. I will come in to him, and wil! sup with
him, and he with me."— RKV. iii. 20.
SPEECHLESS Sorrow sat with me ;
I was sighing wearily !
Lamp and fire were out : the rain
Wildly beat the window-pane.
In the dark wre heard a knock ;
And a hand was on the lock ;
One in waiting spake to me,
Saying sweetlv,
"I am come to sup icith tlice ! "
All my room was dark and damp ;
" Sorrow ! " said I, " trim the lamp ;
Light the fire, and cheer thy face;
f-et the guest-chair in its place."
And again I heard the knock :
In the dark I found the lock : —
" Enter! I have turned the key! —
Enter, Stranger !
Who art come to sup with me."
Opening wide the door, he came ;
But I could not speak his name :
In the guest-chair took his place ;
But I could not see his face !
When my cheerful fire was beaming,
When my little lamp was gleaming,
And the feast was spread for three,
Lo ! my MASTER
Was the Guest that supped with me !
EMMA LAZAEUS.
IN THE JEWISH SYNAGOGUE AT NEWPORT.
HERE, where the noises of the busy town,
The ocean's plunge and roar can enter
not,
We stand and gaze around with tearful awe,
And muse upon the consecrated spot.
No signs of life are here : the very prayers
Inscribed around are in a language dead ;
The light of the " perpetual lamp " is spent
That an undying radiance was to shed.
What prayers were in this temple offered up,
Wrung from sad hearts that knew no joy
on earth,
By these lone exiles of a thousand years,
'From the fair sunrise land that gave them
birth !
Now as we gaze, in this new world of light,
Upon this relic of the days of old,
The present vanishes, and tropic bloom,
And Eastern towns and temples we behold.
Again we see the patriarch with his flocka.
The purple seas, the hot blue sky o'erhead,
The slaves of Egypt, — omens, mysteries, —
Dark fleeing hosts by flaming angels led.
A wondrous light upon a sky -kissed mount,
A man who reads Jehovah's written law,
'Midst blinding glory and effulgence rare,
Unto a people prone with reverent awe.
The pride of luxury's barbaric pomp,
In the rich court of royal Solomon-
Alas ! we wake : one scene alone remains, —
The exiles by the streams of Babylon.
Our softened voices send us back again
But mournful echoes through the empty
hall ;
Our footsteps have a strange unnatural sound,
And with unwonted gentleness they fall.
The weary ones, the sad, the suffering,
All found their comfort in the holy place,
And children's gladness and men's gratitude
Took voice and mingled in the chant of
praise.
The funeral and the marriage, now, alas !
We know not which is sadder to recall ;
For youth and happiness have followed age,
And green grass lieth gently over all.
Nathless the sacred shrine is holy yet,
With its lone floors where reverent feet
once trod.
Take off your shoes as by the burning bush,
Before the mystery of death and God.
ON A TUFT OF GRASS.
WEAK, slender blades of tender green,
With little fragrance, little sheen,
What makes ye so dear to all ?
Nor bud, nor flower, nor fruit have ye,
So tiny, it can only be
'Mongst fairies ye are counted tall.
No beauty is in this, — ah, yea,
E'en as I gaze on you to-day,
Your hue and fragrance bear me back
Into the green, wide fields of old,
With clear, blue air, and manifold
Bright buds and flowers in blossoming
track.
All bent one way like flickering flame,
Each blade caught sunlight as it came,
Then rising, saddened into shade ;
A changeful, wavy, harmless sea,
Whose billows none could bitterly
Reproach, with wrecks that they had
made.
No gold ever was buried there
More rich, more precious, or more fair
Than buttercups with yellow gloss.
No ships of mighty forest trees
E'er foundered in these guiltless seas
Of grassy waves and tender moss.
All, no ! ah. no ! not guiltless still,
Green waves on meadow and on hill,
Not wholly innocent are ye ;
For what dead hopes and loves, what graves,
Lie underneath your placid waves,
While breezes kiss them lovingly 1
Calm sleepers with sealed eyes lie there ;
They see not, neither feel nor care
If over them the grass be green.
And some sleep here who ne'er knew rest,
Until the grass grew o'er their bn-a-t,
And stilled the aching pain within.
Not all the sorrow man hath known,
Nor all the evil he hath done,
Have ever cast thereon a stain.
It groweth green and fresh and light,
As in the olden garden bright,
Beneath the feet of Eve and Cain.
It flutters, bows, and bends, and quivers,
And creeps through forests and by rivers,
Each blade with dewy brightness wet,
So soft, so quiet, and so fair,
Wo almost dream of sleeping there,
Without or sorrow or regret.
474
EMMA LAZARUS.
DREAMS.
A DIIE.VM of lilies : all the blooming earth,
A garden full of fairies and of flowers;
Its only music the glad cry of mirth,
While the warm sun weaves golden-tissued
• hours ;
Hope a bright angel, beautiful and true
As Truth herself, and life a lovely toy,
Which ne'er will weary us, ne'er break, a
new
Eternal source of pleasure and of joy.
A dream of roses: vision of Love's tree,
Of beauty and of madness, and as bright
As naught on earth save only dreams can be,
.Made fair and odorous with flower and
light ;
A dream that Love is strong to outlast
Time,
That hearts are stronger than forgetful-
ness,
The slippery sand than changeful waves
that climb,
The wind-blown foam than mighty waters'
stress.
A dream of laurels : after much is gone,
Much buried, much lamented, much for
got,
With what remains to do and what is done,
With w.hat yet is, and what, alas ! is not,
Man dreams a dream of laurel and of bays,
A dream of crowns and guerdons and
rewards,
Wherein sounds sweet the hollow voice of
praise,
And bright appears the wreath that it
awards.
A dream of poppies, sad and true as Truth,
That all these dreams were dreams of
vanity ;
And full of bitter penitence and ruth,
In his last dream, man deems 'twere good
to die ;
And weeping o'er the visions vain of yore.
In the sail vigils he doth nightly keep,
He dreams it may be good to dream no more,
And life has nothing like Death's dream
less sleep.
EXULTATION.
BEHOLD, I walked abroad at early morning,
The lie] ds of June were bathed in dew
and lustre,
The hills were clad with light as with a
garment.
The inexpressible auroral freshness,
The grave, immutable, aerial heavens,
The transient clouds above the quiet land
scape,
The heavy odor of the passionate lilacs,
That hedged the road with sober-colored-
clusters,
All these o'ermastered me with subtle power,
And made my rural walk a royal progress,
Peopled my solitude with airy spirits,
Who hovered over me with joyous singing.
"Behold!" they sang, "the glory of the
morning.
Through every vein does not the summer
tingle,
With vague desire and flush of expectation ?
" To think how fair is life ! set round with
grandeur ;
The eloquent sea beneath the voiceless
heavens,
The shifting shows of every bounteous sea
son ;
" Rich skies, fantastic clouds, and herby
meadows,
Gray rivers, prairies spread with regal flow
ers,
Grasses and grains and herds of browsing
cattle :
" Great cities filled with breathing men and
women,
Of whom the basest have their aspirations,
High impulses of courage or affection.
" And on this brave earth still those finer
spirits,
Heroic Valor, admirable Friendship,
And Love itself, a very god among you.
"All these for thee, and thou evoked from
nothing,
Born from blank darkness to this blaze of
beauty,
Where is thy faith, and where are thy
thanksgivings? "
The world is his who can behold it rightly,
Who hears the harmonies of unseen angels
Above the senseless outcry of the hour."
SONNET.
STILL northward is the central mount of
Maine,
From whose high crown the rugged for
ests seem
Like sliaven lawns, and lakes with fre
quent gleam,
"Like broken mirrors," flash back light
again.
Eastward the sea, with its majestic plain,
landless, of radiant, re,-tless blue, superb
With miirht and music, whether storms per
turb"
Its reckless waves, or halcyon winds that
reign,
Make it serene as wisdom. Storied Spain
Is the next coast, and yet we may not
sigh
For lands beyond the inexorable main ;
Our noble scenes have yet no history.
All subtler charms than those that feed
the eye,
Our lives must give them ; 'tis an aim
austere,
But opes new vistas, and a pathway clear.
MAKIA:N~ DOUGLAS.
MY WINTER FRIEND.
THE chickadee, the chickadee, —
A chosen friend of mine is he.
His head and throat are glossy black ;
He wears a great coat on his back ;
His vest is light, — 'tis almost white ;
His eyes are round and clear and bright.
He picks the seeds from withered weeds ;
Upon my table-crumbs he feeds ;
He comes and goes through falling snows ;
The freezing wind around him blows, —
He heeds it not : his heart is gay
As if it were the breeze of May.
The whole day long he sings one song,
Though dark the sky may be ;
And better than all other birds
I love the chickadee !
The bluebird coming in the spring,
The goldfinch with his yellow wing,
The humming-bird that feeds on pinks
And roses, and the bobolinks,
The robins gay, the sparrows gray, —
They all delight me while they stay.
But when, ah me ! they chance to see
A red leaf on the maple-tree,
They all cry, " 0, we dread the snow ! "
And spread their wings in haste to go ;
And when they all have southward flown,
The chickadee remains alone.
A bird that stays in wintry days,
A friend indeed is he ;
And better than all other birds
I love the chickadee !
POLITICS.
BILL MORE and I, in davs g-one by,
Were friends the long year through,
Save when, above the melting snow,
Wild March his trumpet blew.
Outspoken foes, we then arose ;
Each chose a different way ;
For March, to our Xew Hampshire hills,
Brings back town-meeting day.
Its gingerbread and oranges,
Alike, on Bill and me
That day bestowed, but only one
Could share its victory.
For what was victory ? We had
Opposing views of that,
For Billy was an old line Whig,
And 1 a Democrat.
The tide of politics ran high
Among the village boys,
And those were truest patriots
Who made the greatest noise.
And who could higher toss his cap,
Or louder shout than I ?
Till all the mountain echoes learnt
My party-battle-cry !
One time — it was election morn, —
Beside the town-house door,
Among a troop of cheering boys,
I came on Billy More.
" Cheer on ! " I called ; " I would not give
For your hurrahs a fig ;
But say, what do the Whigs believe ?
Speak, Billy ! you're a Whig."
And Bill said : " I don't know nor care;
You needn't ask me that ;
You'd better tell me, if you can,
Why you're a Democrat."
And T commenced, in bold disdain,
" What ? tell you if I can?
I ? Why my father's candidate
For second selectman.
" And he knows — I know — he knows — lie—
I think— 1 feel— I— I—
I — I — I am a Democrat, —
And that's the reason why."
" Ha ! ha ! " the mocking shout that rose, —
I seem to hear it now,
And feel the hot, tumultuous blood
That crimsoned cheek and brow !
I might have spared my blushes then,
I should have kept my shame
For men, grown men, who fight to-day,
For just a party name !
This side or that, they cast their votes,
And pledge their faith, and why ':
Go ask, and you will find them wise
As BiJly More and I !
WAITING FOR THE MAY.
FROM out his hive there came a bee :
" Has spring-time come, or not ?" said he.
Alone, within a garden-bed,
A small, pale snowdrop raised its head.
" 'Tis March, this tells me," said the bee;
"The hive is still the place for me.
The day is chill, although 'tis sunny.
And icy cold this snowdrop's honey.
47G
MARIAN DOUGLAS,
Again came humming' forth the bee ;
" What month is with us now ?" said he.
(iniy crocus-blossoms, blue and white
And yellow, opened to the; light.
" It must be April," said the bee.
" And April's scarce the month for me.
I'll taste these flowers (the day is sunny),
But wait before 1 gather honey."
Once more came out the waiting bee :
" 'Tis come : I smell the spring ! " said he.
The violets were all in bloom ;
The lilac tossed a purple plume;
The datl'dill wore a yellow-crown ;
The cherry-tree a snow-white gown ;
And by the brookside, wet with dew,
The early wild-wake robins grew.
" It is the May-time.! " said the bee,
" The queen of all the months for me!
The flowers are here, the sky is sunny:
'Tis now my time to gather honey ! "
CHIMNEY-TOPS.
" An ! the morning is gray;
And what kind of a day
Is it likely to be?"
" You must look up, and see
What the chimney pots say.
"If the smoke from the mouth
Of the chimney goes south
'Tis the north wind, that blows
From the country of snows :
Look out for rough weather ;
The cold and the north wind
Are always together.
" When the smoke pouring1 forth
From the chimney u'oes north,
A mild day it will be,
A warm time we shall see :
The south wind is blowing
From lands where the orange
And fig-trees are growing.
" But, if west goes the smoke,
(let your water-proof cloak
And umbrella about :
'Tis the east wind that's out.
A wet day you will find it :
Tho east wind has always
A storm close behind it.
" It is east the smoke flies !
"We may look for blue skies!
Soon the clouds will take flight,
'Twill be sunny and bright;'
The sweetest and best wind
Is, surely, that fair-weather
Bringer, the west wind."
THE YELLOW CLOUD.
"LOOK up! There's just one cloud in
sight, —
A ydlow cloud as sunshine bright,
That, like a little golden boat,
Across the clear blue seems to float.
0 ! how I wish that cloud were ours,
The color of the cowslip-flowers,
And, sitting on it, you and I
Were gaily sailing round the sky !
0 ! wouldn't it be pleasant ?
O ! should'nt we be proud
If we could only own it, —
That little ye'llow cloud ?
" As free as birds we then could go
V\ hatever way the wind might blow, —
Above the rivers gleaming bright,
Above the hills with snowdrifts white,
Upon the tree-tops looking down,
Upon the steeples of the town.
We should hear far below us
The great bells ringing loud.
0 ! don't you wish we owned it, —
That little yellow cloud ? "
" Why wish for what will never be ?
That little cloud is not for me ;
But if it were, and you and I
Were on it sailing round the sky,
Who knows ? we might be wishing then,
' 0, if we could get down again ! '
Tis better to be humble,
By far, than to be proud ;
And on the ground we're safer
Than sailing on a cloud."
THE ROPE DANCER.
WHEN I was seven — 0, it seems
A thousand years ago !
My sailor uncle took me out
To see a travelling show.
I -wore, I can remember still,
A white cape with a plaited frill ;
And, through the green fields, to the tent,
A proud and happy child, I went.
The usual dwarf, contrasted, stood,
Beside the giant, there,
And to a squeaking fiddle danced
A well-instructed bear ;
And yards of ribbon, pink and blue,
From out his throat, a juggler drew ;
But, when the last performance came,
It made these sights seem poor and tame.
For, lightlv as a spider runs
Along the glistening thread.
Upon a slender rope, that stretched
High, high above my head,
A little girl tripped, to and fro,
And did not cast one glance below !
A girl? It rather seemed to me
That fresh from fairy-land was she !
She had a poppy-colored skirt,
A gown of golden gauze,
And when she came back to the ground,
The tent rang with applause ;
Well pleased, she bowed and curt'sied then,
And went through all her feats again ;
Along the rope I saw her rise,
With throbbing heart, but envious eyes.
MARIAN DOUGLAS.
477
For, as I watched this elf, who seemed
Like Beauty's self, to me,
Of happy lots, the happiest,
I thought that hers must be ;
Since I, poor I, could never hope,
Like her, to walk upon a rope,
I felt, and felt that it was hard,
I was from life's best joy debarred !
But as, thus murmuring in my heart,
And filled with discontent,
Beside my uncle, with the crowd
That left the show, I went,
He pulled my sleeve, and whispered,
" See!"
And, lo ! my fairy, close to me
Was standing, speaking with the dwarf.
1 looked, and wished her further off !
For, nearer seen, the face I thought
So fair, looked pinched and brown ;
Begrimmed and frayed the scarlet skirt,
And stained the golden gown ;
How clean, I can remember still,
Beside it, seemed my cape's white frill !
I felt my weakened conscience stir,
To think how I had envied her !
And when, as we, together, home,
Walked down the field's green slope,
My uncle asked, " How would you like
To dance upon a rope,
And mount as high, and look as gay,
As did the girl we saw to-day ? "
I only shook my little head,
And not one word, in answer, said.
ANT-HILLS.
IN their small, queer houses,
Each one with a round,
Ever-open doorway,
Leading under ground,
Living in my flower-bed,
Near my balsam plants,
Are, at least, a dozen
Families of ants.
Very neat and quiet
Working folks are they,
Cleaning house all summer,
From the first of May.
In and out their doorways,
Up and down they go,
Bits of earth and gravel
Bringing from below ;
Carrying the sand grains
From their rooms away,
Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning,
Every sunny day.
Labor is a blessing ;
But I really can't
Think it would be pleasant
To grow up an ant,
And be always busy,
Cleaning house each day,
All the pleasant summer,
From the first of May !
THE LOST FLOWERS.
ROSY red the summer sky ;
Rosy red the fields below,
By the blooming clover tinged,
Painted by the sunset's glow ;
Rosy red the river's breast,
Softly rippling towards the west,
While, beneath the willow's shade,
Happy, though alone, I played.
Brighter was my childish dream
Than the river or the sky ;
Floating wild-flowers down the stream,
What companion needed I ?
Sending forth a fairy fleet
Of midsummer blossoms sweet !
Meadow lilies, brown and gold,
Trailing wreaths of virgin's bower,
The red mulberry's crimson bloom,
Jewel weed and elder flower ;
Down the river's murmuring flow,
One by one, I watched them go,
Slowly drifting, till the last
Lingering flower from sight had passed,
And the sky above grew gray,
Gray beneath the river grew,
While the damp, chill, evening mist
Hid the clover-fields from view.
Empty-handed, half afraid,
Hastening homewawl in the shade,
Sadly, vainly, wished I then,
" Would I had my flowers again ! "
ONE SATURDAY.
I NEYER had a happier time,
And I am forty-three,
Than one midsummer afternoon,
When it was May with me :
Life's fragrant May,
And Saturday,
And you came out with me to play ;
And up and down the garden walks,
Among the flowering beans,
We proudly walked and tossed our heads,
And played that we were queens.
Thrice prudent sovereigns, we made
The diadems we wore,
And fashioned for our royal hands,
The sceptres which they bore ;
But good Queen Bess
Had surely less
Than we, of proud self-consciousness,
While wreaths of honeysuckle hung
Around your rosy neck,
And tufts of marigold looped up
My gown, a " gingham check."
Our chosen land was parted out,
Like Israel's, by lot ;
My kingdom, from the garden wall
Reached to the strawberry plot ;
The onion-bed.
The beet-tops red,
The corn which \vaved above my head,
478
MARIAN DOUGLAS.
The gooseberry bushes, hung with fruit,
The wandering melon-vine,
The carrots and the cabbages,
All, all of them, were mine !
Beneath the cherry-tree was placed
Your tli rone, a broken chair ;
Your realm was narrower than mine,
But it was twice as fair:
Tall hollyhocks,
And purple phlox,
And time-observing four o'clocks,
Blue lavender, and candytuft,
And pink and white sweet peas,
Your loyal subjects, waved their heads
In every passing breeze.
Oh ! gay and prosperous was our reign
Till we were called to tea ; —
But years, since then, have come and gone,
And I am forty-three !
Yet, journeying
On rapid wing,
Time has not brought, and cannot bring,
For you or me, a happier day .
Than when, among the beans,
We proudly walked and tossed our heads,
And fancied we were queens.
THE SONG OF THE BEE.
Buzz-z-z-z-z-z, buzz !
This is the song of the bee.
His legs are of yellow ;
A jolly good fellow,
And yet a great worker, is he.
In days that are sunny,
He's getting his honey;
In days that are cloudy,
He's making his wax :
On pinks and on lilies,
And gay daffodillies,
And columbine blossoms,
He levies a tax !
Buzz-z-z-z-z-z, buzz !
The sweet-smelling clover,
He, humming, hangs over;
The scent of the roses
Makes fragrant his wings;
lie never gets lazy ;
From thistle and daisy,
And weeds of the meadow,
Some treasure he brings.
Buzz-z-z-z-z-z, buz/ !
From morning's first gray'light,
Till fading of day 'light.
He's singing and toiling
The summer day through.
Oh. we may get weary,
And think work is dreary:
'Tis harder, by far,
To have nothing to do !
THE YEAR'S LAST FLOWER.
WITCH-HAZEL bough ! Witch-hazel bough !
Strange time it seems to blossom now !
The sky is gray, the birds have flown,
With rustling leaves the ground is strown ;
The May-time, with her cowslip crown,
Sweet Summer, showering rose-leaves down,
The Autumn days, a bannered train,
With colors like the flag of Spain,
Have come and gone, without the power
To win from thee a single flower !
But now, when woods and fieldfc are bare,
And chill with coming snow the air,
All wreathed with spring-like bloom art
thou,
All decked with gold, Witch-hazel bough '
Witch-hazel bough ! Witch-hazel bough !
Could I believe old stories now,
Within my hand, were I a witch,
Thou had'st the power to make me rich ;
To prove a true divining-rod,
And show where, under stone or sod,
Or growing tree, or running brook,
I should for hidden treasure look !
A child, I sought thy charm to try,
But wo is me, no witch am I ;
For never gleam of elfin gold
'Twas my good fortune to behold ;
Xo magic dwells in me, or thou
Hast lost thy spell, Witch-hazel bough }
Witch-hazel bough ! Witch-hazel bough !
Though wizards' arts are powerless now,
A high resolve, a steadfast will,
A fearless heart work wonders still.
To find and win a needful store
Of goods, and gold, and wisdom's lore,
The true divining-rods for me,
Henceforth must toil and patience be !
Then welcome, honest Labor ! Thou
Shalt bloom unplucked, Witch-hazel bough !
TWO PICTURES.
AN old farm-house, with meadows wide,
And sweet with clover on each side ;
A bright-eyed boy, who looks from out
The door, with woodbine wreathed about,
And wishes his one thought all day, —
" Oh, if I could but fly away
From this dull spot, the world to see,
How happy, happy, happy.
How happy 1 should be ! "
Amid the city's constant din,
A man, who round the world has been,
Who, 'mid the tumult and the throng,
Is thinking, thinking, all day long, —
" Oh, could I only tread once more .
The tield-path to the farm-house door,
The old green meadows could I see,
How happy, happy, happy,
How happy I should be ! "
MES. LUCY HAMILTON HOOPEE.
REVELRY.
FILL the cup till o'er the brim
Flows the bright champagne.
Here's forgetfulness of grief,
Balm for every pain.
Drink ! we watch the dying hours
Of. the dying year.
She I loved is dead and gone.
Dead — and I am here !
Change the flask, and fill the glass
With the red Lafitte.
If there's Lethe upon earth,
This— 0 this is it !
Drink ! till o'er the purple skies
Morning flushes clear.
You are dead, O love of mine !
Dead — and I am here !
Pass the dusky Cognac here, »
Fill a stronger draught, *
Richer with the vine's hot life
Than the last we quaffed.
Drink ! till Mem'ry's phantoms pale
Fade and disappear.
Drink ! till I forget she's dead !
Dead — and 1 am here!
THE DUEL.
You need not turn so pale, love ; I'm unhurt.
We quarreled at the opera last night
About some trine. Nay, I scarce know what.
We men will quarrel for the merest slight.
We settled time, place, weapon, on the spot;
Bois de Boulogne, this morning, pistols —
well, —
I fear that you are cold, you shudder so, —
At the first shot my adversary fell,
Shot through the heart, stone-dead. Nay,
now, don't faint !
I hate a fainting woman. Here's your
fan ;
A little water ? So, you're better now.
Pray, hear my story out, love, if you
can.
I think he uttered something as he fell :
A woman's name — I scarcely caught the
sound :
. It passed so quickly that I am not sure,
For he was dead before he reached the
ground.
Ah, poor de Courcy ! Handsome, was he
not?
A favorite with the ladies, I believe.
They'll miss him sadly. More than one
fair dame
Will o'er his sudden fate in secret grieve.
How well he looked this morning, as he
stood
Waiting my fire with such a careless grace,
The breezes playing with his raven curls,
The sunshine lighting up his gay bright
face !
Suppose my hand had trembled ? If it had,
I would have fallen instead of him.
You're white
At the bare thought. Nay, here I am, quite
well,
And ready for the opera to-night.
Ronconi plays, and I would like to see
" Marie de Rohan" once or twice again.
His acting as De Chevreuse is sublime ;
How he portrays the jealous husband's
pain !
All husbands have not such a wife as you ;
Fair as the sun, and chaste as winter's
moon !
How very pale you still are, dearest wife !
There is no danger of another swoon ?
How wrong I was to tell you I had fought ;
I think you've scarce recovered from the
shock.
One kiss upon your brow, and then I'll go ;
And pray be readv, love, at eig'ht o'clock !
RE-UNITED.
You are dead, and I am dying ;
We shall meet before the morrow ;
All our lonely years are ended ;
We have done with pain and sorrow.
I shall see you ere the setting
Of yon slowly rising moon.
Ay, we knew not when we parted
That we'd meet again so soon.
All the long years we were severed
All their bitter sorrows, seem
Like the pale and fading phantoms
Of a scarce-remembered dream.
And my heart forgets its aching
In the joy that thrills it now ;
There are none to come between us
In the land to which I go.
Do you know that I am coming ?
Do you watch for me to-night ?
Do you wait above the stars, love,
As I wait beneath their light ?
480
MRS. LUCY HAMILTON HOOPER.
Ah, I know that you are waiting
In your fair and distant home !
We've a tryst now, O beloved !
Where no enemies can come.
You are dead, and I am dying,
Very slowly, but at last.
And I trust the death-veiled Future
To redeem the mournful Past.
Ne'er was pillow pressed so gladly
As the one whereon I'm lying ;
For I know you'll greet my waking.
You are dead, and I am dying !
THE KING'S RIDE.
ABOVE the city of Berlin
Shines soft the summer day,
And near the royal palace shout
The schoolboys at their play.
Sudden the mighty palace gates
Unclasp their portals wide,
And forth into the sunshine see
A single horseman ride.
A bent old man in plain attire ;
No glitt'ring courtiers wait,
No armed guard attends the steps
Of Frederick the Great !
The boys have spied him, and with shouts
The summer breezes ring.
The merry urchins haste to greet
Their well-beloved king.
Impeding e'en his horse's tread,
Presses the joyous train ;
And Prussia's despot frowns his best,
And shakes his stick in vain.
The frowning look, the angry tone,
Are feigned, full well they know.
They do not fear his stick — that hand
Ne'er .struck a coward blow.
" Be off to school, you boys ! " he cries.
" Ho ! ho ! " the laughers i-ay,
"A pretty king you not to know
We've holiday to-day !"
And so upon that summer day,
Those children at his side,
The symbol of his nation's love,
Did royal Frederick ride.
0 Kings ! your thrones are tott'ring now !
Dark frowns the brow of Fate !
When did you ride as rode that day
King Frederick the Great V
AT THE BAL MABILLE.
1 WAITED near the Bal Mabille,
Beside the open door,
I fain would see the face that I
Shall living see no more.
Outside, the silent night and I ;
Inside, the joyous din :
Alas! that Love should weep without,
And ISin should laugh within.
You passed me in the lamp -lit street,
With flowers in your hair,
And diamonds upon your breast,
So beautiful — so bare.
Your dress of rosy moire silk
Swept round me as you passed :
You'll find a stain upon its folds —
It was a tear — my last.
I scarcely knew the face I loved
A few brief mouths ago,
For there was paint upon your cheek,
A brand upon your brow.
Now I shall never seek you more,
Whate'er your fate may be.
I go to wait, where soon, or late,
You'll surely come to me.
Though months and years may pass away
Before we meet again,
You will not fail to keep ids tryst
Beside the river Seine.
Dim then will be those shameless eyes,
Those mocking lips be dumb ;
For I am keeper of La Morgue :
I wait there till you come.
You will not come with painted cheeks,
In flowers, gems, and moire.
Good-night, 0 woman that I loved ;
Good-night, and au revoir.
TOUCH NOT.
"SVo still u'in Herz von Liebe gluht.
WHERE glows a heart with silent love
Lay not thy reckless hand thereon ;
Extinguish not the heavenly spark ;
Indeed, indeed, 'twere not well done !
If e'er a spot all unprofaned
Is found upon this world of ours,
It is a youthful human heart
When first it yields to pure Love's
pow'rs.
Oh, grant thou still the dream that comes
'Alid rosy blossoms of the May !
Thou know'st not what a paradise
Doth with that vision pass awav.
There broke full many a valiant heart
When love was reft away by fate,
And many, suff ring, wander forth,
Filled with all bitterness and hate ;
And many, bleeding, wounded sore,
Shriek loud for hopes forever fled,
And mid the world's dust fling them down, —
For godlike Love to them was dead.
And weep, complain, e'en as thou wilt,
Not all thy penitence and pain
Can cause a faded rose to bloom,
Or bid a dead heart live again.
MBS. HAKEIET PKESCOTT SPOFFOKD.
A LOVER'S GARDEN.
I THINK the white azaleas, dear,
Shaped out of air to match thyself,
Yet doubt if thou wilt find one here
Among this fragrant flowery pelf ;
For they must hide when thou art near —
As fair as moonlight and as clear.
But any rose that here may blow
Is not one-half so sweet as thou,
Though petaled white with flakes of snow —
Yet bind no spray about thy brow ;
Let the voluptuous roses go,
For roses have a thorn, we know.
But bend and do not pass thee by,
Where faintest odors hover low ;
Here the dark violets ensky
Meanings that should not 'scape thee so,
Since in their heaven-deepened dye
Pure dreams of perfect passion lie.
And here, like spirits of the blest,
The golden censer in the hand,
To worship and to praise addressed,
Rank after rank the lilies stand,
Long for a place upon thy breast,
Ask is thy smile or sunshine best !
A nd flout not the fair fleur-de-lis
That lightly nods that purple plume —
Flower of romantic chivalry,
All France bends to thee in its bloom !
A royal banner's blazonry —
Thy sceptre would it rather be !
Where float the moths, the bluebirds sip,
Where breath is rapture to the core,
Where honeysuckles climb and slip —
Linger, and say, Had Eden more ?
Tiptoe and let the glad things drip
Their golden honey on thy lip !
But o'er those beds of blasting blight,
Blue hoods of poison and the tomb —
That blood-red blossom, a delight
To look at, but whose touch is doom —
Ah, let thy foot make fleeting flight
Through foxglove and through aconite !
Yet breathe thee where the winds outroll
From heliotropes an atmosphere
Of fullest joy and vaguest dole,
That makes each moment deep and dear,
While dim regrets shall fill thy soul,
And longings for some unknown goal.
So shall these buds forever bloom
Around thee in my memory's freak,
The strawberry-tree refuse thee room,
The sweet-brier spray brush by thy cheek
And thou be fresh 'mid their perfume,
And white 'mid their ensanguined gloom.
Then flit down yonder hawthorn coast,
The ancient lilac alleys thread,
And turn the labyrinth, and be lost —
That one day, when all hope is dead,
And when the place is dreary most,
Haunt it, I may, with thy sweet ghost !
AT TWILIGHT.
LIKE some bright mounting flame our life,
New-kindled, springs and sparkles,
Now soars defiance to the sun,
Now glooms and darkles ;
Here from the ruby-hearted glow
Sweet influence round it shedding —
Here from a half-quenched sullen brand
Dull shadow spreading.
And gathered in its blither blaze
What gay friends haply cluster,
Warmed deeply with the rosy ray
And lightsome lustre !
Full soon the cheerful guests are gone
In slow departing number,
Close-curtained from the murmuring world-
Each to his slumber.
And down on the deserted hearth,
In dying, fitful flashes,
The lonely fire has drooped and sunk
And fallen in ashes ;
Yet part of that immortal flame
Which, far in deeps of even,
Informs the white and sacred stars
And dazzles heaven !
VANITY.
THE sun conies up and the sun goes down,
And day and night are the same as one ;
The year' grows green and the year grows
brown,
And what is it all, when all is done V
Grains of sombre or shining sand,
Sliding into and out of the hand.
And men go down in ships to the seas,
And a hundred ships are the same as one ;
And backward and forward blows the breeze,
And what is it all, when all is done?
A tide with never a t-diore in sight
Setting steadily on to the night.
482
MRS. HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD.
The fisher droppeth his net in the stream,
And a hundred streams are the same as
one ;
And the maiden dreameth her love-lit dream,
And what is it all, when till is done ?
The net of the fisher the burden breaks,
And alway the dreaming the dreamer wakes.
FLOWER SONGS.
1.— THE VIOLET.
SOAR, solemn heavens, your splendid
height,
And then in flashing darkness bend,
Wrap the sweet earth about with night,
Aird wide dim fields from end to end,
Lying far off and low,
Serenely with your brooding mystery
blend.
Slumber, sweet earth ! Thy lofty shade
Glows with the shining phantom dreams
That haunt thee nightly. Music made
By burdened boughs and rustling
streams,
Now falling hushed and slow,
Remotely lapped in dewy silence seems.
And ever blow between, faint air,
Blow with light, hesitating breath,
From melancholy places where
Perpetual fragrance wandereth.
O'er grave and garden blow,
Over warm life, and over lonely death.
And while the murmur rang, the sudden stir
Of branches tost in a tumultuous gust
Of showers and sweetness, darkling, swept
the brow
And passed. And through the fluted melody
There breathed that sound that silence lis
tens to —
The crickets chirping their unbroken strain
On th' hill-side, in the black warm summer
night,
Thrill of ethereal tone, as if were heard
The rustle of the great orb's wings through
space
What time the brede of stars its lustre floats
In self-poised circles, and the dusk is deep.
And then, as when across one's rarest dream,
Just drawing off from the rich dregs of sleep,
A cheery cry comes, and a broken tune,
And in the covert of their odorous depths
The robins shake their wild wet wings and
flood
The shallow shores of dawn with music, till
The world is rosy — so another voice
Stole toward me, and I saw the hyacinth
With its white helmet part the sun-soaked
sod.
And heard, as if from out the bells that
wreathe
Its spire of piercing perfume dropped the
tones
Like rain-drops tinkling in a way-side pool.
II.— THE HYACINTH.
ON topmost twigs when morning burns
And lights his trembling fires,
When from his wing the glad bird spurns
The dew, and with his carol yearns
And to heaven's gate aspires —
The Maker looks upon his world
That puts her beauty bare,
All freshly, fragrantly inipearled
Beneath the tender air,
Looks on his soft and gleaming world
And smiles to find her fair.
Then waken, waken,
The earth has taken
Into the sunshine her wondrous way ;
Then waken, waken,
The dews are shaken
Loose from the leaves and melt away,
Lost in the beautiful light of day !
Here the clear singing of the joyous sprite
Startled the echoes of that underworld
Where buds lie sleeping — straight the silent
bush
Beside me quivered in the happy light ;
The red sap mounted along stem and spray,
In countless hurried convolutions whirled
To break at once into the perfect flower —
The perfect flower — proud was the song she
sung.
III.— THE ROSE.
I AM the one rich thing that morn
Leaves for the ardent noon to win ;
Grasp me not, I have a thorn,
But bend and take my fragrance in.
The dew-drop on my bosom gives
The whole of heaven to searching eyes,
Only he who sees it lives,
And only he who slights it dies.
Ah, what bewildering warmth and wealth
Gather within my central fold !
Love-lorn airs of happy health
Hive with the honey that I hold.
This dazzling ruddiness divine
Shrouds spicy savors deep and dear,
Passion's sign and countersign,
The inmost meaning of the sphere
Petal on petal opening wide,
My being into beauty flows —
Hundred-leaved and damask-dyed —
Yet nothing, nothing but a rose !
And shaking off a sudden passionate tear
The rose ceased warble, and in an ecstasy
Shed all her lovely leaves around my feet
And stood discrowned.
Then gently was I 'ware
Of a pure breath from that delicious hour
When day sweeps all her glory after her
To fresh horizons — rapt and holy tone
Where lingered yet the note that haply fell
From seraphs leaning o'er the battlements
Of shining tower and rampart far above,
And ever in their idlesse singing praise.
MRS. HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD.
483
IV.— THE LILY.
Lift thine eyes, against the deepening skies
All the sacred hills like altars glow,
Waiting for the hastening sacrifice
Ere the evening winds begin to blow.
Lift thy heart, and let the prayer depart
To meet the heavenly flame upon the
height,
Till all thy shadows into splendor start,
And the calm brain grow clear with still
delight !
PEACE.
OH that the bells in all these silent spires
Would clash their clangor on the sleeping
air,
Ring their wild music out with throbbing
choirs,
Ring peace in everywhere !
Oh that this wave of sorrow surging o'er
The red, red land would wash away its
stain —
Drown out the angry fire from shore to
shore,
And give it peace again !
On last year's blossoming graves, with sum
mer calm,
Loud in his happy tangle hums the bee ;
Nature forgets her hurt, and finds her balm —
Alas ! and why not we ?
Spirit of God ! that moved upon the face
Of the waters, and bade ancient chaos
cease,
Shine, shine again o'er this tumultuous
space,
Thou that art Prince of Peace !
MUSIC IN THE NIGHT.
WHEN stars pursue their solemn flight,
Oft in the middle of the night,
A strain of music visits me,
Hushed in a moment silverly—
Such rich and rapturous strains as make
The very soul of silence ache
With longing for the melody.
Or lovers in the distant dusk
Of summer gardens, sweet as musk,
Pouring the blissful burden out,
The breaking joy, the dying doubt ;
Or revelers — all flown with wine,
And in a madness half divine,
Beating the broken tune about.
Or else the rude and rolling notes
That leave some strolling sailors' throats,
Hoarse with the salt sprays, it may be,
Of many a mile of rushing sea ;
Or some high-minded dreamer strays
Late through the solitary ways,
Nor heeds the listening night, nor me.
Or how or whence those tones be heard,
Hearing, the slumbering soul is stirred,
As when a swiftly passing light
Startles the shadows into flight,
While one remembrance suddenly
Thrills through the melting melody —
A strain of music in the night.
Out of the darkness bursts the song,
Into the darkness moves along ;
Only a chord of memory jars,
Only an old wound burns its scars,
As the wild sweetness of the strain
Smites the heart with passionate pain,
And vanishes among the stars.
HEREAFTER.
LOVE, when all these years are silent, van
ished quite and laid to rest,
When you and I are sleeping, folded into
one another's breast,
When no morrow is before us, and the
long grass tosses o'er us,
And our grave remains forgotten, or by alien
footsteps pressed —
Still that love of ours will linger, that great
love enrich the earth,
Sunshine in the heavenly azure, breezes
blowing joyous mirth ;
Fragrance fanning off from flowers, mel
ody of summer showers,
Sparkle of the spicy wood-fires round the
happy autumn hearth.
That's our love. But you and I, dear — shall
we linger with it yet,
Mingled in one dew-drop, tangled in one
sunbeam's golden net,
On the violet's purple bosom, I the sheen,
but you the blossom —
Stream on sunset winds and be the haze
with which some hill is wet ?
Or, beloved— if ascending— when we have
endowed the world
With the best bloom of our being, whither
will our way by whirled,
Through what vast and starry spaces,
toward what awful holy places,
With a white light on our faces, spirit over
spirit furled ?
Only this our yearning answers — whereso'er
that way defile.
Not a film shall part us through the aeons
of that mighty while,
In the fair eternal weather, even as phan
toms still together,
Floating, floating, one forever, in the light
of God's great smile !
DAYBREAK.
THROUGH rosy dawns of June I go,
Again the deepening sweetness part,
While all their raptures round me flow
And bubble freshly in my heart.
484
MRS. HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD.
The broad blue mountains lift their brows
"Barely to bathe them in the blaze ;
The bobolinks from silence rouse
And Hash along melodious ways ;
And hid beneath the grasses, wet
With long carouse, a honeyed crew,
Anemone and violet,
Yet rollicking are drunk with dew.
How soft the wind that blows my hair —
That steals the song off from my lip,
And mounts in gladder tumult where
The murmurous branches bend and dip!
How proudly smiling on his love
The sun rides up the central blue,
While like the wing of summer's dove
She changes to his changing view —
All loveliness in every light,
Voluptuous beauty o'er her strewn,
A thing to lap the soul's delight
While morning widens into noon !
NOCTUKNE.
IN the soft, starless summer night
No murmur swims along the air,
Wrapped in her dim and dusky veil,
Earth seems to slumber everywhere.
All the still dews in hiding lie,
With unrobbed sweetness droops the rose,
Nor up nor down the garden walks
A slight or stealthy zephyr blows.
Darkness and hush, profoundest peace ;
The falling leaf forgets to float ;
When with one deep and mighty throb
Along the headland strikes the rote ! —
Strikes with the awful undertone
Of some great storm's tremendous blast,
That far through white mid-seas ploughs on
To scream around a broken mast !
But here the swell shall heave to shore
A muffled music, till it seems
The trouble of the sea become
Only the burden of a dream !
MAGDALEN.
IF any woman of us all,
If any woman of the street,
Before the Lord should pause and fall,
And with her long hair wipe his feet —
He whom with yc!irnin«r hearts we love,
And fain would ^<-e with human eyes
Around our living pathway move,
And underneath our daily skies —
The Maker of the heavens and earth,
The Lord of life, the Lord of death,
In whom the universe had birth,
But breathing of our breath one breath,
If any woman of the street
Should kneel, and with the lifted mesh
Of her long tresses wipe his feet,
And with her kisses kiss their flesh —
How round that woman would we throng,
How willingly would clasp her hands
Fresh from, that touch divine, and long
To gather up the twice-blest strands !
How eagerly with her would change
Our idle innocence, nor heed
Her shameful memories and strange,
Could we but also claim that deed !
A SIGH.
IT was nothing but a rose I gave her,
Nothing but a rose
Any wind might rob of half its savor,
Any wind that blows.
When she took it from my trembling fingers
With a hand as chill —
Ah, the flying touch upon them lingers,
Stays, and thrills them still !
Withered, faded, pressed between the pages,
Crumpled fold on fold —
Once it lay upon her breast, and ages
Cannot make it old !
ALIVE.
WHEN the wild- wake robin starts in the
wood
At the joy of the earth who escapes her
bars,
And the birches flutter in breezy mood,
And the quick brooks run and sing in the
sun
To some strain of the song of the morn
ing stars ;
When the gay rhodoras throng the swamp,
Like a settling cloud of winged things
All a-quiver in purple pomp,
And their green and gold the ferns unfold
To the far-heard murmur of hastening
springs ;
When trillums nod, and the columbines
Spread like flames through the forest
gloom ;
When in open field the white-weed shines,
And the birds and bees in the apple-trees
Dart through skies of blue and of
bloom ;
When the whole bright orb is flashing
along
With her cloudy gossamers round her
curled,
A thing of blossom and leaf and song —
Still, I cry, is He far as the farthest star,
Or living and pulsing across His world ?
MARY. N. PEESCOTT.
A LULLABY.
HUSH, liusli, my sweet ;
Rest, rest thy tired feet ;
Forget the storms and tears of thy brief
hours ;
There's naught shall thee distress,
Wrapt in sleep's blissfulness,
Crowned by a dream of flowers.
Hush, dearest, hush ;
May no intruder brush
From off thy bloomy cheek the downy kiss ;
May no unquiet fly
Go rudely buzzing by,
To snatch away thy bliss.
May dreams enchanted spread
A pillow for thy head,
And hang a curtain* 'twixt thee and the sun ;
While smiles shall overflow
Thy rosy lips, as though
The angels' whispers were too sweet for
one.
Then sleep, my baby, dear ;
Yet, lest the traitor, Fear,
Should cry, " The child will waken never
more ! "
Stir in thy dreams anon,
Bidding the thought begone,
And lift thine eyes to bless me as before !
ROCK, LITTLE NEST.
ROCK in the wind, little nest ;
When you are full, life is best ;
Soon enough wings will be grown,
Flutter, and leave you alone.
Rock in the wind, little nest ;
Say, what are storms to the blest ?
Though you should tremble and fall,
God cares for sparrows and all !
Rock, little nest ; like a song
All the sweet days fleet along ;
Winter will presently come,
Making you vacant and dumb !
A TEAR.
WHEN the long green grass waves o'er me,
And no summers are before me ;
When the bitter wind's increase
In no wise disturbs my peace ;
When the spring's sweet thrill, as once,
Wakes in rue no quick response,
Will you, dear, in losing me,
Lose the bloom of sky and sea ?
When the brown bees' busy hum
Does not reach me, cold and dumb ;
When the scent of the wild rose
Breathes the sadness of repose,
Where no tender voice is heard,
Heart-sick sigh or whispered word ;
When for me all seasons fail,
Will your love, sweet, still prevail?
Happier far the grave's seclusion,
Where your love may seek intrusion,
Than the summer's wasted sweetness,
Barren of that love's completeness.
Mouldering underneath the sod,
Waiting on the will of God,
Heaven itself would yet seem near,
Should you drop there, sweet, a tear !
TO-DAY.
TO-DAY the sunshine freely showers
Its benediction where we stand ;
There's not a passing cloud that lowers
Above this pleasant summer-land :
Then let's not waste the sweet to-day—
To-morrow, who can say ?
Perhaps to-morrow we may be
(Alas ! alas ! the thought is pain !)
As far apart as sky and sea,
Sundered, to meet no more again :
Then let us clasp thee, sweet to-day —
To-morrow, who can say ?
The daylight fades ; a purple dream
Of twilight hovers overhead,
While all the trembling stars do seem
Like sad tears yet unshed :
Oh, sweet to-day, so soon away !
To-morrow, who can say ?
SONG.
SLIPPING, drifting with the tide,
All the summer twilight through,
While in heaven the stars abide,
In my heart sweet dreams of you.
Echoes following from the shore
Seem the chorus of our song,
Summer odors blown before
Float the tune along.
MARY N. PRESCOTT.
Shall we linger till the day
Paints the earth a thing divine ?
Spread the sail and haste away
Where the distant breakers shine ?
Held within their fearful grasp,
Would they crush us like a shell ?
Dying, dearest, in your clasp
All would yet be well !
TWO MOODS.
I PLUCKED the harebells as I went
Singing along the river-side ;
The skies above were opulent
Of sunshine. " Ah ! whate'er betide,
The world is sweet, is sweet," I cried,
That morning by the river-side.
The curlews called along the shore ;
The boats put out from sandy beach ;
Afar I heard the breakers' roar,
Mellowed to silver-sounding speech ;
And still I sang it o'er and o'er,
" The world is sweet for evermore I "
Perhaps, to-day, some other one,
Loitering along the river-side,
Content beneath the gracious sun,
May sing, again, " Whate'er betide,
The world is sweet." I shall not chide,
Although my song is done.
A SONG.
'Tis not the murmuring voice of Spring
That stirs my heart and makes me sing ;
'Tis not the blue skies, bubbling1 o'er
With sunshine spilled along earth's floor ;
Nor yet the flush of bursting rose,
>><>!• bloom of any flower that grows.
It is that long, long years ago,
When all the world was blushing so —
It is that then my cheek blushed too,
My heart beat fast for love and you :
There was a music in the air
I fail to find now anywhere.
Ami so, when Spring comes wandering by,
I lose the thread of misery ;
Trusting the promise of her days,
I tune my voice to sing her praise,
And cheat myself with the sweet pain
That in the spring Love blooms again.
ASLEEP.
SOUND asleep : no sigh can reach
Him who dreams the heavenly dream
No to-morrow's silver speech
Wake him with an earthly theme.
Summer rains relentlessly
Patter where his head doth lie ;
There the wild fern and the brake
All their summer leisure take.
Violets blinded with the dew,
Perfume lend to the sad rue,
Till the day breaks, fair and clear,
And no shadow doth appear.
THE BROOK.
" O I am tired ! " said the brook, complain
ing,
" I fain would stop a little while to rest ;
The clouds would weary were they always
raining ;
The bird, if she forever built her nest !
" The stars withdraw from heaven and cease
their shining,
The sun himself drops down into the west.
I fain would stop," the brook kept on repir •
ing,
" And catch my breath, and be an instant
blessed.
" All day a voice calls, ' Follow, dearest, fol
low/
And toiling on, I seek to reach the goal,
Nor pause to list to yonder happy swallow,
Telling in song the secret of his soul.''
" O foolish brook ! " the wind blew in re
plying,
" Am 1 not always with you on the wing ?
Cease your fond mourning, cease your weary
sighing,
And thank your stars for such companion
ing ! "
The sun came up across the silver dawning,
And hung a golden flame against the sky ;
He dallied not to drink the dews of morning,
And when the night fell ; lo ! the brook was
dry!
At rest ! at rest ! no more of toil unceasing ;
No watering of the roots of shrub or tree ;
No hoarding from the rain, nor still increas
ing1,
To lose itself, at last, within the sea !
THE END.
INDEX OF
NAMES OF AUTHOKS.
I'AGE
360
A
Allen Elizabeth Akers Mrs
PAGE
401
L
Larcom, Lucy, Miss
B
225
Lawson, Mary Lockhart, Miss
Lazarus, Emma, Miss
386
473
Lee, Eleanor, Mrs
333
Lee, Mary E., Miss
216
263
164
Lewis, Sarah Anna, Mrs
357
Lipplncott, Sara J.. Mrs
390
28
Liszt, Harriet Winslow, Mrs.
354
137
Little, Sophia L., Mrs
107
Bolt oil Sarah T Mrs
308
Loud, Margaret St. Leon, Mrs
HI
232
Lowell, Maria, Mrs
38d
Bradley, Mary E., Mrs
432
M
May, Caroline, Miss
346
Bradctreet Anne Mrs
17
69
Brooks Mary E Mrs
139
" Mav Edith," Miss
362
c
Campbell, Juliet H. L.,Mrs
.. 355
Mayo, Sarah Edgarton, Mrs.
298
McCartee. Jessie G., Mrs
131
Meigs, Mary Noel, Mrs. .
. 270
Moulton Louise Chandler Mrs
447
Canfield Francesca Pascalis Mrs .
135
N
Nichols. Rebecca S., Mrs
316
Cooke, Rollin, Mrs. (Rose Terry).
409
Cure)', .Alice Miss
372
372
Case, Luella J. B., Mrs. . .
306
0
Oakes-Smith, Elizabeth, Mrs
.. 177
Chandler, Caroline H Mrs
352
Chandler. Elizabeth Margaret, Miss .. .
149
Child, Lydia Maria, Mrs.
110
Oliver, Sophia Helen, Mrs
214
D
Davidson, Lucretia, Miss
152
Oso'ood Frances Sargent Mrs.
272
Os^ood Kate Putnam Miss
437
P
Pierson, Lydia Jane, Mrs
Perry, Nora, Misa
256
465
Of)
Davidson. Margaret, Miss
Day, Martha, Miss
Dinnios. Anna Peyre. Mrs
.. 152
328
208
Docld, Mary Ann Hanmer, Miss
Dorr, Julia C. R., Mrs
D'Ossoli, Marchioness, Margaret Fuller...
Douglas, Marian, Miss
E
Eames, Elizabeth Jessup, Mrs.
229
423
251
475
246
Phillips. Anne H., Miss
Piatt, S. M. B., Mrs
Pindar Sn-'an Miss
399
443
. 343
Prescott, Mary N., Miss
Preston, Margaret J., Mrs
R
485
460
267
Ellet, Elizabeth J., Mrs
199
143
Embury. Emma C., Mrs
468
Esling, Catharine H., Mrs
217
33
F
Faugeres, Margaretta V., Mrs..
Ferguson, Elizabeth Gneme, Mrs...
Follen, Eliza L., Mrs
35
24
121
S
Sawyer, Caroline M., Mrs
Scott, Julia H., Mrs
Sigou rney, Lydia Huntley, Mrs
218
206
H
Fuller, Frances A., Miss
Fuller, Metta V., Miss
G
Gray, Jane L. , Mrs
368
368
104
Sproat, Eliza L., Miss
Smith, Emeline S., Mrs
353
259
212
. 157
Stephens, Ann S., Mrs
210
Green, Frances H., Mrs
Gilman. Caroline, Mrs
123
52
St. John, A. R.. Mrs
Stoddard, Elizabeth. Mrs
... 211
415
Gould, Hannah F.,Miss
H
Hale, Sarah Josepha, Mrs...
Hall, Louisa J., Mrs
Haven, Alice G., Mrs
45
75
Ill
349
Stoddard. Lavinia, Mrs
428
T
Taggart, Cynthia, Miss
Talley. Susan Archer, Miss
133
311
450
Hooper, Lucy, Miss
Hooper. Lucy Hamilton, Mrs
Howe, Julia Ward, Mrs
Hunt, Helen, Mrs.. .
288
479
321
457
Thurston, Laura M.. Mrs
Townsend, Eliza, Miss .
W
Ward Julia Ru«h Mrs
2-27
38
. 90
J
Jacobs, Sarah S., Miss
James, Maria, Miss
303
66
102
WarfiVld, Catharine,' Mrs
Warren, Mercy, Mrs
.. 333
21
Judson, Emily C., Mrs
K
Kimball. Harriet McEwen Miss
241
471
W<jlby. Amelia B., Mrs
Wells, Anna Mario, Mrs
325
63
1(16
Whitney 'Adeline D T. Mrs ...
453
Woodman Hannah J Miss
.. .. 310
Kinney, E. C., Mrs '
195
... 260
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